Enrich a column of company websites in Google Sheets with one formula
I build Programmable, so this is a post about my own tool. But the pattern is useful on its own: a Google Sheet can call any URL that returns CSV, and that's enough to turn a column of company websites into a researched list without a script, an add-on or a Zap. The one formula Say column A has company websites, starting in A2. Put this in B2 and fill it down:…
This guide explains how to use a single formula in a Google Sheet to enrich a column of company websites with data from a URL. If the company websites are listed in column A starting from cell A2, the formula to enter in cell B2 and then copy down is:
=IMPORTDATA(https://programmable.info/x/live?key=YOUR_KEY&header=0&domains=&ENCODEURL(A2))
The formula uses three functions to gather the data:
1. IMPORTDATA fetches the URL and returns the CSV data it contains in a row.
2. ENCODEURL encodes any odd characters in the domain to make it valid as a query string.
3. header=0 removes the header row from the CSV data.
The result of this formula is a row containing various company details like name, industry, headquarters, employee count, technology stack, social links, open positions, and email setup information.
To customize which columns are displayed, you can add the columns= parameter in plain words, like this:
=IMPORTDATA(https://programmable.info/x/live?key=YOUR_KEY&header=0&columns=tech stack, hiring&domains=&ENCODEURL(A2))
This will only return the Tech Stack and Hiring columns from each company's data.
You can also ask a question and get a single-line answer from the company's own pages, like:
https://programmable.info/x/live?domains=stripe.com&ask=Who do they sell to?
However, be cautious - the API key used in the URL is visible to anyone who can view the Google Sheet. It's recommended to use a share key with limitations instead of the main API key.
Google Sheets will automatically recalculate when needed, which will fetch the latest data. For a one-time list, you can copy the results and paste them as values once they've been generated.
Alternatively, you can call formulas by name using an add-on called PROGRAMMABLE_ROW to cache results for 6 hours and avoid additional credits being used.
The data can also be accessed directly via a curl command, making it usable with other tools like Zapier, n8n, Make, Claude, or Cursor. It costs one credit per row, plus additional credits for each extra-column group like email finder or leadership. New accounts come with 500 credits included.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
