google-news-decoder

n8n node to decode Google News URLs

Package Information

Downloads: 0 weekly / 9 monthly

Latest Version: 0.1.0

Available Nodes

Google News Decoder

Decodes encoded Google News URLs to their original destination

Documentation

🔓 n8n-nodes-google-news-decoder

A powerful n8n custom node that decodes Google News encoded URLs into clean, original article links with built-in caching and advanced configuration options.

🎯 Overview

This package provides a custom n8n node that transforms complex Google News RSS encoded URLs into clean, decoded URLs with intelligent caching and customizable decoding parameters.

Before:

https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMihAFBVV95cUxNRnMtZDFfUTgx...

After:

https://original-news-site.com/article-title-here

✨ Features

🔗 URL Decoding - Converts Google News encoded RSS links to original URLs
💾 Smart Caching - Built-in LRU cache (max 1000 items) with configurable TTL
📊 Metadata Extraction - Retrieves signature, timestamp, and GUID
🎛️ Customizable - Configure RPC headers, locales, and endpoints
🚀 Simple Integration - Works seamlessly with n8n workflows
🎯 RSS Optimized - Perfect for Google News RSS → article extraction pipelines
⚡ Performance - Sequential processing with error handling and cache support

Output Data

Each decoded URL returns:

{
  "guid": "CBMihAFBVV95cUxNRnMtZDFfUTgx...",
  "encodedUrl": "https://news.google.com/rss/articles/...",
  "decodedUrl": "https://original-news-site.com/article",
  "timestamp": "1705334400",
  "signature": "CBMiXWh0dHBz...",
  "cached": false,
  "cacheAge": "0s" // Only present if cached=true
}

📦 Prerequisites

Requirement	Version
Node.js	18.x or 20.x
npm	8.x or higher
n8n	1.12+
OS	Windows, Linux, macOS

🚀 Installation

Step 1: Install n8n (if needed)

# Install n8n globally
npm install -g n8n

# Start n8n
n8n start

Step 2: Install the Custom Node

Navigate to your n8n configuration folder:

# Windows (typically)
cd C:\Users\<username>\.n8n

# macOS/Linux (typically)
cd ~/.n8n

Create the nodes directory (if not present) and initialize a new Node.js project:

mkdir -p nodes
cd nodes
npm init -y

Install the package:

Option A: From Local Path

npm install /path/to/n8n-nodes-google-news-decoder

Option B: From GitHub

npm install git+https://github.com/ziedkefidev-cell/n8n-nodes-google-news-decoder.git

Option C: From npm (if published)

npm install n8n-nodes-google-news-decoder

Step 3: Restart n8n

n8n start

🎉 The node will now appear in n8n under the name "Google News Decoder"

⚙️ Configuration

Basic Configuration

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
Encoded URL	String	Yes	Google News encoded URL to decode

Advanced Options

🔧 HTML Extraction

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Signature Attribute	String	`data-n-a-sg`	HTML attribute for signature
Timestamp Attribute	String	`data-n-a-ts`	HTML attribute for timestamp

🌍 Localization

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Locale	String	`US:en`	Locale for decode request (e.g., FR:fr)

🔌 API Configuration

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Decode Endpoint	String	`https://news.google.com/_/DotsSplashUi/data/batchexecute`	Google's internal decoding endpoint
RPC Header Base	JSON	`["X", "X", 1, [1, 1, 1], ...]`	Custom RPC header structure

💾 Caching

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
Enable Cache	Boolean	`true`	Enable/disable result caching
Cache TTL (minutes)	Number	`5`	Cache time-to-live (shown when enabled)

Cache Features:

LRU eviction (max 1000 items)
Per-URL caching
Cached responses include cacheAge field
Automatic TTL expiration

🌐 HTTP Headers

Header Name	Default Value	Description
User-Agent	`Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) ...`	Browser user agent
Referer	`https://www.google.com/`	HTTP referer header

Additional custom headers can be added as needed.

💡 Usage

Basic Example

Add Google News Decoder node to your workflow
Configure the Encoded URL field with a Google News link
Execute the workflow

Input:

https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiXWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3...

Output:

{
  "guid": "CBMiXWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3...",
  "encodedUrl": "https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMi...",
  "decodedUrl": "https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/15/ai-story",
  "timestamp": "1705334400",
  "signature": "CBMiXWh0dHBz...",
  "cached": false
}

With Caching Enabled

First Request:

{
  "decodedUrl": "https://example.com/article",
  "cached": false
}

Subsequent Request (within TTL):

{
  "decodedUrl": "https://example.com/article",
  "cached": true,
  "cacheAge": "45s"
}

🔄 Example Workflow

graph LR
    A[RSS Feed Node] -->|encoded URLs| B[Google News Decoder]
    B -->|clean URLs| C[HTTP Request Node]
    C -->|article content| D[Process/Store]

    style B fill:#4285F4,color:#fff

Workflow Steps:

RSS Feed Node - Fetches Google News RSS feed with encoded links
Google News Decoder Node - Decodes URLs to original article links (with caching)
HTTP Request Node - Fetches the actual article content
Processing Node - Parse, store, or analyze the article data

Example Workflow JSON

{
  "nodes": [
    {
      "name": "RSS Feed",
      "type": "n8n-nodes-base.rssFeedRead",
      "parameters": {
        "url": "https://news.google.com/rss/search?q=technology"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "Google News Decoder",
      "type": "n8n-nodes-google-news-decoder.googleNewsDecoder",
      "parameters": {
        "encodedUrl": "={{ $json.link }}",
        "advanced": {
          "enableCache": true,
          "cacheTTL": 10
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "HTTP Request",
      "type": "n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest",
      "parameters": {
        "url": "={{ $json.decodedUrl }}"
      }
    }
  ]
}

🚀 Advanced Features

Custom RPC Header Base

If Google changes their API structure, you can update the RPC header base:

["X", "X", 1, [1, 1, 1], 1, 1, null, 0, 0, null, 0]

Format: Must be a valid JSON array matching Google's expected structure.

Custom Locale Configuration

For international Google News sources:

Locale	Description
`US:en`	United States (English)
`FR:fr`	France (French)
`DE:de`	Germany (German)
`JP:ja`	Japan (Japanese)
`UK:en`	United Kingdom (English)

Cache Management

How the cache works:

LRU Eviction: When cache reaches 1000 items, oldest entries are removed
TTL Expiration: Cached results expire after configured minutes
Per-URL Keying: Each unique encoded URL has its own cache entry
In-Memory: Cache is lost on n8n restart (session-based)

Best Practices:

Enable cache for workflows processing the same URLs repeatedly
Use shorter TTL (1-5 min) for frequently updated news
Use longer TTL (30-60 min) for stable article lists
Disable cache for one-time bulk processing

🛠️ Development

Clone and Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/n8n-nodes-google-news-decoder.git

# Navigate to directory
cd n8n-nodes-google-news-decoder

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build

Build Commands

# Development build
npm run build

# Watch mode (auto-rebuild on changes)
npm run dev

# Clean build artifacts
npm run clean

# Local test (without n8n)
npm run test:local

Implementation Highlights

Core Features:

✅ Sequential item processing with error handling
✅ In-memory LRU cache with TTL
✅ Regex escaping for HTML attribute extraction
✅ Flexible article ID extraction from URL
✅ Configurable RPC header structure
✅ Custom HTTP headers support
✅ Continue-on-fail support

🧪 Testing

Local HTTP Test (without n8n)

Run a standalone test to verify the decoder works:

# Install test dependencies
npm install node-fetch

# Build the project
npm run build

# Run local test
npm run test:local

Expected Output:

🧪 Testing Google News Decoder (Local Mode)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Input URL:  https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMi...
Decoded URL: https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/15/ai-article
GUID:       CBMiXWh0dHBz...
Timestamp:  1705334400

✅ Decode successful!

Testing in n8n

Create a new workflow
Add a Manual Trigger node
Add Google News Decoder node

Configure with test URL:

https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiXWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRlY2hjcnVuY2guY29tLzIwMjQvMDEvMTUvYWktc3Rvcnkv0gEA

Execute and check output

Test Cache Behavior

Execute workflow with cache enabled
Check output: "cached": false
Execute again within TTL
Check output: "cached": true, "cacheAge": "15s"

🔧 Troubleshooting

Node Not Appearing in n8n

Problem: Node doesn't show up in the n8n interface

Solutions:

Verify installation in ~/.n8n/nodes/node_modules/

ls ~/.n8n/nodes/node_modules/n8n-nodes-google-news-decoder

Check package.json has correct n8n configuration
Restart n8n completely
```
pkill -f n8n
n8n start
```
Check n8n logs for errors
```
n8n start --loglevel debug
```

Decoding Errors

Issue: "Could not extract decoding keys from Google News page"

Causes & Solutions:

❌ Google changed HTML structure
- ✅ Update Signature Attribute and Timestamp Attribute in Advanced options
- ✅ Inspect a Google News page to find new attribute names
❌ Invalid encoded URL
- ✅ Ensure URL starts with https://news.google.com/
- ✅ URL must contain /articles/ path

Issue: "Invalid decode response format"

Causes & Solutions:

❌ Google changed API response structure
- ✅ Update RPC Header Base in Advanced options
- ✅ Check Google's current API format
❌ Network timeout
- ✅ Check internet connection
- ✅ Verify firewall allows requests to news.google.com

Issue: "Could not extract article ID"

Causes & Solutions:

❌ Non-standard URL format
- ✅ URL must match pattern: /articles/[ARTICLE_ID]
- ✅ ARTICLE_ID typically starts with CB

Cache Issues

Issue: Cache not working / Always returns "cached": false

Solutions:

Verify Enable Cache is set to true in Advanced options
Check Cache TTL is greater than 0
Ensure you're using the exact same encoded URL
Remember cache is lost on n8n restart

Issue: Want to clear cache

Solution:

Restart n8n (cache is in-memory only)
Or disable and re-enable cache in node settings

Build Errors

Problem: npm run build fails

Solutions:

# Clean and rebuild
rm -rf dist node_modules package-lock.json
npm install
npm run build

# If TypeScript errors persist
npm install --save-dev typescript@latest
npm run build

⚠️ Important Notes

🔄 This node relies on Google's internal URL structure and decoding endpoint
⚡ Google may change their URL format or API at any time
🔒 No API key or authentication required (uses public endpoints)
💾 Cache is in-memory and cleared on n8n restart
📊 Maximum 1000 cached items (LRU eviction)
🌐 Works with all Google News country domains
⚖️ Not affiliated with or endorsed by Google

Rate Limiting

While the node itself has no rate limits, Google may rate-limit requests. Recommendations:

Use caching to reduce API calls
Add delay between batches (use n8n's Wait node)
Process items in smaller batches

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Fork the repository
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
Open a Pull Request

Contribution Ideas

🌍 Add proxy feature
🔄 Batch processing optimization

📬 Support

If you encounter any issues or have questions:

🐛 Report a bug
💬 Join n8n community

🙏 Acknowledgments

Built for the n8n workflow automation platform
Inspired by the need for clean, trackable news URLs
Thanks to the n8n community for feedback and testing

Made with ❤️ for the n8n community

⭐ Star this repository if you find it helpful!

google-news-decoderInstall

Package Information

Available Nodes

Documentation

🔓 n8n-nodes-google-news-decoder

📋 Table of Contents

🎯 Overview

✨ Features

Output Data

📦 Prerequisites

🚀 Installation

Step 1: Install n8n (if needed)

Step 2: Install the Custom Node

Step 3: Restart n8n

⚙️ Configuration

Basic Configuration

Advanced Options

🔧 HTML Extraction

🌍 Localization

🔌 API Configuration

💾 Caching

🌐 HTTP Headers

💡 Usage

Basic Example

With Caching Enabled

🔄 Example Workflow

Workflow Steps:

Example Workflow JSON

🚀 Advanced Features

Custom RPC Header Base

Custom Locale Configuration

Cache Management

🛠️ Development

Clone and Setup

Build Commands

Implementation Highlights

🧪 Testing

Local HTTP Test (without n8n)

Testing in n8n

Test Cache Behavior

🔧 Troubleshooting

Node Not Appearing in n8n

Decoding Errors

Cache Issues

Build Errors

⚠️ Important Notes

Rate Limiting

📄 License

🤝 Contributing

Contribution Ideas

📬 Support

🙏 Acknowledgments

Discussion

google-news-decoder