Hello community,
I manage a web scraping tool that extracts text from thousands of pages daily. Currently, I’m utilizing a headless browser for each page since numerous websites rely on client-side technologies like Next.js and React for rendering. Although this method ensures complete content capture, it’s quite slow and costly.
I aim to enhance efficiency by establishing a detection mechanism that operates as follows:
- Initiate a basic GET request (which is quick and economical).
- Evaluate the server’s response to decide if rendering is necessary.
- Deploy the headless browser only when required.
What are effective ways to determine whether a page needs JavaScript rendering? I’m looking for methods that address most general scenarios while reducing the chances of missing content.
Has anyone tackled this issue before? I’d appreciate any insights or solutions you can share.
Thanks for your help!
[EDIT]: To clarify, I scrape numerous diverse websites (thousands of domains), typically one page per domain. This entails:
- No manual checks on each site.
- Inability to identify specific API patterns.
- Requirement for a fully automated approach suitable for various sites.
- Need to automatically determine the necessity of JavaScript rendering.