Linktree Expander

Given a list of Linktree slugs, produce a per-creator profile with all formal social handles (IG / TikTok / YouTube / Substack / etc.), outbound link categorization, bio text, and visible contact email.

Why useful

Linktree is the dominant link-in-bio service. KOL discovery pipelines (e.g. tools/backlink-kol-extractor) often surface Linktree handles as the only contact point for a creator. Each linktr.ee/{handle} is a portfolio listing all their socials + featured links. Expanding 45 Linktree handles takes ~2 min and yields ~5-15 social handles per creator.

Quick Start

# Input: text file (one handle per line) OR CSV (need --col)
python3 scripts/expand_linktree.py handles.txt --out linktree_expanded.csv

# From a CSV (e.g. kol_prospects_social.csv produced by backlink-kol-extractor)
python3 scripts/expand_linktree.py kol_prospects_social.csv --col username --out lt.csv

# Slow it down (default 1.5s between requests)
python3 scripts/expand_linktree.py handles.txt --delay 3.0 --out lt.csv

Output Schema

linktree_expanded.csv:

Column	Description
linktree_handle	Slug
page_title	Display name on Linktree page
bio	Description text (often contains email or pitch)
ig, tiktok, youtube, twitter, facebook	Social handles (no full URL, just the slug)
substack, podcast_apple, podcast_spotify, pinterest, twitch	Same
personal_site	First non-social outbound domain (heuristic for own site)
email_visible	Email regex-matched in bio
outbound_count	Total outbound link cards
top_categories	Top 3 outbound link categories (e.g. "social_post(8) / shop(3) / blog(2)")
primary_brand_partner	Most-frequent shop/affiliate host in outbound (signal of brand collab)
scraped_at	ISO timestamp
status	"ok" / "fetch_failed" / "parse_failed"

How it works

Linktree pages serve a Next.js app. The user-clickable links are NOT in <a href=""> tags — they're embedded in the __NEXT_DATA__ JSON blob. The script parses that JSON for stable extraction (vs DOM scraping which uses React-rendered class hashes that break on every Linktree deploy).

Key paths in __NEXT_DATA__:

• props.pageProps.account → username, pageTitle, description (bio), socialLinks
• props.pageProps.links → outbound link cards (title + url + type)

When NOT to use

• Other link-in-bio services (bio.link, beacons.ai, solo.to, etc.) — those have different page structures. Adapt this skill to a sister tools/linkbio-expander/ if needed.
• Detailed engagement data (followers, ER) — Linktree doesn't expose these. After running this skill, feed the IG/TikTok/YouTube handles into a sister skill (or Apify actor) for engagement enrichment.

Cloudflare / anti-bot

Linktree currently does NOT use Cloudflare (verified 2026-05-06). Plain requests works. If this changes, switch to the _fetcher.py pattern from outbound-prospecting/media-press-discovery/scripts/_fetcher.py (supports --via remote-chrome / --via apify).

Performance

• Single-thread, sequential. ~1.5s/page default delay → ~2 min for 45 handles.
• Linktree's rate limit is forgiving but not infinite — sustained >5 req/sec triggers temporary 429.
• For 1000+ handles, consider partitioning (split handles file across machines, run in parallel).

Known failure modes (实测 2026-05-06)

Mode	Frequency	Handling
Handle deleted (404)	~5%	row marked status=fetch_failed (e.g. one handle in the 45-handle pilot returned 404 — likely renamed or deleted)
__NEXT_DATA__ not in HTML (page variant)	<1%	row marked status=parse_failed, manual fallback
Account locked / private	rare	same as 404
Outbound URLs hidden behind Linktree's redirect (linktr.ee/r/...)	rare	follow with requests.head() to resolve final URL

Pilot run results (2026-05-06)

Run on a 45-handle seed list (extracted from kol_prospects_social.csv via tools/backlink-kol-extractor for a single domain category):

Wrote 45 rows (44 ok) to linktree_expanded.csv
Field hit rates:
  ig: 26/45 (58%)
  tiktok: 18/45 (40%)
  youtube: 8/45 (18%)
  twitter: 3/45
  facebook: 11/45
  substack: 0/45  (none of these creators primarily on Substack)
  podcast_apple: 5/45 / podcast_spotify: 5/45
  personal_site: 44/45 (98%)
  bio_has_content (>20 chars): 23/45
  email_visible_in_bio: 0/45  (Linktree bios in 2026 are emoji-heavy, emails rare)

Related skills

• tools/backlink-kol-extractor — produces the input handles list
• outbound-prospecting/media-press-discovery — for media journalists (different anchor: Muckrack, not Linktree)
• (Future) tools/linkbio-expander/ — same concept for bio.link, beacons.ai, etc.
• (Future) tools/social-platform-enricher/ — IG/TikTok/YouTube engagement data via Apify