Unguided application crawling architecture

An apparatus for automated acquisition of content from an application and improved searching of the content in response to a query of a user device, the apparatus comprising:

• at least one processor, the at least one processor configured to track links, the tracking of links including:
• controlling an executing instance of the application;
• and
• for a selected state of the application;
• controlling the executing application instance to navigate to the selected state, and
• identifying a first set of application states reachable from the selected state, each of the first set of application states being reachable via a respective user interface interaction with the selected state,
• wherein the at least one processor is further configured to store records in a state storage based on the first set of application states, a first state record including:
• (i) a representation of content of a first state of the first set of application states, and
• (ii) a unique identifier that uniquely identifies the first state within the records of the state storage, the unique identifier of the first state indicating a path followed within the executing application instance from a default state of the application to the first state, and the path including the user interface interaction corresponding to the first state,
• wherein the at least one processor is further configured to scrape records, including, for each of the stored records, extract text and metadata from the state, information based on the extracted text and metadata being stored in a data store, and
• wherein the at least one processor is further configured to provide at least one record in response to the query from the user device.