How to filter for high-quality, verified sources#

To return only trustworthy articles in a single step, add is_high_quality=1 to your /v1/news/everything request. The flag keeps articles that come from a well-ranked publisher (OPR 5 or higher), are not duplicates, carry at least one image, and have a named author — one switch that screens out thin and low-quality content without listing domains by hand.

curl "https://api.apitube.io/v1/news/everything?is_high_quality=1&api_key=YOUR_API_KEY"

You can send the key as a header (X-API-Key: YOUR_API_KEY) instead of the api_key query parameter. The flag accepts only 0 or 1; any other value returns HTTP 400 with error ER0303 (is_high_quality must be 0 or 1.).

What does is_high_quality actually check?#

is_high_quality=1 is a composite filter: an article is kept only when all four of these conditions are true at once.

• Not a duplicate — the article is not flagged as a copy of another story.
• Well-ranked source — the publisher’s OPR (Open Page Rank) is 5 or higher.
• Has an image — the article carries at least one image.
• Has a named author — a byline is attached to the article.

Because every condition must pass, is_high_quality is stricter than a source-only filter: even a top-tier publisher is dropped if the specific article is a duplicate, has no image, or has no byline. Use it when you want clean, presentable results — for a feed, a newsletter, or a dataset — rather than maximum coverage.

How is high-quality different from verified or premium sources?#

is_high_quality builds on the same source-authority bar as a verified source (OPR 5 and above) and then adds article-level checks (no duplicate, an image, a byline). The is_verified_source and is_premium_source flags look only at the publisher’s OPR — is_verified_source=1 keeps OPR 5+ and drops duplicates, while is_premium_source=1 keeps the top tier at OPR 6+. Neither one requires an image or an author.

So pick is_high_quality when you care about the article itself being complete and clean; pick the source flags when you only care about publisher authority. For the source-only flags, see how to filter for premium and verified sources.

How to set your own source-rank floor#

is_high_quality fixes the OPR floor at 5. If you want a different cutoff, filter on the rank directly with source.rank.opr.min (and its companion source.rank.opr.max). OPR is scored on a 0–10 scale, so pass a whole number:

curl "https://api.apitube.io/v1/news/everything?is_high_quality=1&source.rank.opr.min=7&api_key=YOUR_API_KEY"

That keeps high-quality articles and raises the publisher floor to OPR 7. A non-numeric value returns ER0044, a negative value returns ER0045, and a value whose length is outside 1–10 characters returns ER0046.

How to confirm why an article passed the filter#

Every article reports its publisher’s OPR under source.rankings.opr, so you can verify the rank that the filter checked:

{
    "source": {
        "domain": "example.com",
        "rankings": { "opr": 7 }
    }
}

Pull a sample without the flag, read the source.rankings.opr values you are getting, then decide whether the built-in OPR-5 floor is enough or you want to raise it with source.rank.opr.min.

How to combine high-quality with other filters#

is_high_quality runs in the shared filter chain, so it stacks with every other parameter and with sorting. This returns the newest English high-quality articles about elections:

curl "https://api.apitube.io/v1/news/everything?is_high_quality=1&language.code=en&title=elections&sort.by=published_at&sort.order=desc&api_key=YOUR_API_KEY"

If you only need the duplicate-removal part of the filter on its own, or want to drop paywalled articles too, see how to exclude paywalled or duplicate articles.

Common Questions#

• What values does is_high_quality accept?
• Does is_high_quality=0 filter anything?
• Why did a real article get dropped?

What values does is_high_quality accept?#

Only 0 or 1. Any other value returns HTTP 400 with error ER0303 (is_high_quality must be 0 or 1.). Leave the parameter off entirely when you do not want the filter.

Does is_high_quality=0 filter anything?#

No. Sending is_high_quality=0 is accepted but applies no constraint — it does not return only low-quality articles. The four checks are added only when the value is 1.

Why did a real article get dropped?#

is_high_quality removes an article when any single condition fails: it is a duplicate, its source OPR is below 5, it has no image, or it has no named author. If you want trustworthy publishers but cannot accept losing image-less or author-less stories, use source.rank.opr.min for a pure source-rank floor instead of is_high_quality.