Glossary
API and data terms,
answered plainly.
Rate limits, pagination, platform APIs, scraping and the metrics people ask for. Each answer explains the idea, then shows how it works in Monocrawl.
6 terms
API basics
How calls are limited, paged, delivered and shaped.
What is API rate limiting?
Why APIs cap requests, how the limits are counted and how a client should react.
What is a 429 error?
What “Too Many Requests” means, why it happens and how to retry safely.
What is cursor pagination?
How APIs page through long lists with a token, and why it beats page numbers for live feeds.
Webhooks vs polling: which should you use?
Asking for changes on a timer versus being told when they happen.
What is a unified social media API?
One key and one response format across many platforms, and what that does and does not mean.
What is an MCP server?
How AI assistants call outside tools and data through the Model Context Protocol.
3 terms
Platform APIs
What the official TikTok, Instagram and Reddit APIs allow, and where they stop.
Does TikTok have an API?
What TikTok’s official APIs offer, who qualifies, and how developers reach public data.
What are Instagram’s API rate limits?
The formulas Meta uses to cap Instagram API calls, and how to read them.
How do Reddit API keys work?
What a Reddit API key is, why it now needs approval, and the limits once you have one.
4 terms
Scraping
How public data is collected from the web, and the rules around it.
What is social media scraping?
Collecting public profiles, posts and comments automatically, and what it takes to do well.
Is web scraping legal?
What the courts and privacy regulators have said about collecting public web data.
Residential vs datacenter proxies: what’s the difference?
Cloud IPs versus home connections, and why the difference matters for collecting data.
What is a user agent?
The header that tells a server which software sent a request.
2 terms
Metrics and listening
The numbers and workflows teams build on public social data.
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