---
title: "Service: /externaluris/forurl/source/metadata [GET]"
source: https://dev.pageseeder.com/api/services/get-externaluri-source-metadata-forurl_get.html
description: "This GET service extracts metadata from external URIs without requiring prior PageSeeder creation. It accepts a URL and optional HTTP method, returning structured metadata including title, description, image, icon, and site information along with retrieval status."
last_updated: 2026-09-08T11:43:29+10:00
document_type: api_endpoint
operation_id: uri-GET
resource_id: uri
path_template: /externaluris/forurl/source/metadata
http_method: GET
api_category: uri
implementation_version: 5.9909
api_since: 5.9800
deprecated_since: null
obsolete_since: null
api_support: supported
cache_control: null
generated_at: 2026-09-02
tokens: ~301
---

# /externaluris/forurl/source/metadata \[GET\]

## Description

Extract the metadata from the specified external URI (doesn’t need to have been created in PageSeeder).

## Parameters

| Name | Description | Required | Type | Default |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| url | The URL for the external URI | yes | url |  |
| method | The HTTP method for loading the URL (`GET`\|`HEAD`) | no | enum | `GET` |

## Permission

Any logged in user can invoke this service.

## Response

The output has the following format:

```xml

<url-source-metadata
     url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Example"
     status="[ok|warning|has_error|internal|invalid_host|malformed|
             not_found|ps_source|redirect|requires_authentication|
             unreachable|unsupported_scheme|virtual]"
     retrieved="2019-10-08T15:06:08+11:00"
     title="Wikipedia:Example - Wikipedia"
     description=""
     image=""
     icon="https://en.wikipedia.org/static/apple-touch/wikipedia.png"
     site-name="en.wikipedia.org"
     canonical=""
    [url-type=""]
    [error=""]>
  <meta name="..." value="..."/>
  ...
</url-source-metadata>
```

## Error Handling

No specific errors expected for this service.