Unified Approach for Parsing Dynamic Websites

Parsing is undoubtedly a complex endeavor, but if the target website uses dynamic encoding methods, this complexity increases even further. Over the years, we have understood the technical nuances of parsing and refined our methods to accurately and efficiently scan websites that are dynamic in nature. Here are some ways we tackle the challenge of parsing dynamic websites.

Parsing Dynamic Websites: Tips and Recommendations

1. Proxies

Some websites have different versions for different geo-locations/devices/OS/browsers, which they serve based on variables. This can cause great confusion for parsers, especially when determining how to extract the required version. This will require some manual work in terms of discovering the various versions provided by the site and configuring proxy servers to obtain the desired version as needed. For geo-specific versions, the parser is simply installed on a server from which the required version of the site is accessible.

2. Browser Automation

When dealing with sites that use very complex and dynamic code, it's better to have all page content rendered in the browser first. You can use Selenium for browser automation, which helps us perform website parsing.

Essentially, it is a convenient set of tools that can control a browser from your favorite programming language. Although mainly used for testing, it can be applied to parse dynamic web pages. It can be used to control a web browser, which is how parsing with Selenium is typically done.

In this case, the browser first renders the page, which helps solve the problem of writing JavaScript code to retrieve page content. Once the page content is rendered, it is saved locally for later extraction of required data points. While this is relatively simple, there is a high probability of encountering errors when using the browser automation method for parsing.

3. Handling POST Requests

Many web pages only display the data we need after receiving specific input from the user. Suppose you are looking for used car data in a specific geographic location on a classifieds website. The site will first ask you to enter the postal code or city from which you need listings. This postal code must be sent to the site as a POST request during parsing. We form the POST request using appropriate parameters to reach the target page containing all the data to be collected.

4. Creating a JSON URL

There are dynamic web pages that use AJAX calls to load and update page content. Such pages are particularly difficult to browse and extract data from because the triggers that make up the JSON file are hard to trace. This requires a lot of manual inspection and testing, but once the appropriate parameters are identified, a JSON file can be created that will retrieve the target page containing the required data points.

This JSON file is often automatically configured for navigation or fetching different data points. Creating a JSON URL with appropriate parameters is the main challenge for web pages using AJAX calls.

In Conclusion

Parsing dynamic websites is extremely complex and requires deep knowledge of web scraping. It also requires an extensive technology stack and a well-built infrastructure capable of handling all the complexities involved in extracting web data. Thanks to our many years of experience and advanced parsing infrastructure, we daily meet data needs related to dynamic web pages. If you need custom web development, we recommend you contact us, as that is a core focus of our company.