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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +title: Scraping with sitemaps |
| 3 | +description: The sitemap.xml file is a jackpot for every web scraper developer. Take advantage of this and learn a much easier way to extract data from websites using Crawlee. |
| 4 | +menuWeight: 3 |
| 5 | +paths: |
| 6 | + - tutorials/scraping-with-sitemaps |
| 7 | +--- |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +# [](#scraping-with-sitemaps) Scraping with sitemaps |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +Let's say we want to scrape a database of craft beers ([brewbound.com](https://brewbound.com)) before summer starts. If we are lucky, the website will contain a sitemap at [https://www.brewbound.com/sitemap.xml](https://www.brewbound.com/sitemap.xml). |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +> Check out [Sitemap Sniffer](https://apify.com/vaclavrut/sitemap-sniffer), which can discover sitemaps in hidden locations! |
| 14 | +
|
| 15 | +## [](#analyzing-the-sitemap) Analyzing the sitemap |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +The sitemap is usually located at the path **/sitemap.xml**. It is always worth trying that URL, as it is rarely linked anywhere on the site. It usually contains a list of all pages in [XML format](https://www.w3.org/standards/xml/core). |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +```XML |
| 20 | +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> |
| 21 | +<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"> |
| 22 | + <url> |
| 23 | + <loc>http://www.brewbound.com/advertise</loc> |
| 24 | + <lastmod>2015-03-19</lastmod> |
| 25 | + <changefreq>daily</changefreq> |
| 26 | + </url> |
| 27 | + <url> |
| 28 | + ... |
| 29 | +``` |
| 30 | + |
| 31 | +The URLs of breweries take this form: |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +```text |
| 34 | +http://www.brewbound.com/breweries/[BREWERY_NAME] |
| 35 | +``` |
| 36 | + |
| 37 | +And the URLs of craft beers look like this: |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +```text |
| 40 | +http://www.brewbound.com/breweries/[BREWERY_NAME]/[BEER_NAME] |
| 41 | +``` |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +They can be matched using the following regular expression: |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +```regexp |
| 46 | +http(s)?:\/\/www\.brewbound\.com\/breweries\/[^\/]+\/[^\/<]+ |
| 47 | +``` |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +Note the two parts of the regular expression `[^\/<]` containing the `<` symbol. This is because we want to exclude the `</loc>` tag, which closes each URL. |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +## [](#scraping-the-sitemap) Scraping the sitemap in Crawlee |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +If you're scraping sitemaps (or anything else, really), [Crawlee](https://crawlee.dev) is perfect for the job. |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | +First, let's add the beer URLs from the sitemap to the [`RequestList`](https://crawlee.dev/api/core/class/RequestList) using our regular expression to match only the (craft!!) beer URLs and not pages of breweries, contact page, etc. |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +```JavaScript |
| 58 | +const requestList = await RequestList.open(null, [{ |
| 59 | + requestsFromUrl: 'https://www.brewbound.com/sitemap.xml', |
| 60 | + regex: /http(s)?:\/\/www\.brewbound\.com\/breweries\/[^\/<]+\/[^\/<]+/gm, |
| 61 | +}]); |
| 62 | +``` |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | +Now, let's use [`PuppeteerCrawler`](https://crawlee.dev/api/puppeteer-crawler/class/PuppeteerCrawler) to scrape the created `RequestList` with [Puppeteer](https://pptr.dev/) and push it to the final dataset. |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +```JavaScript |
| 67 | +const crawler = new PuppeteerCrawler({ |
| 68 | + requestList, |
| 69 | + async requestHandler({ page }) { |
| 70 | + const beerPage = await page.evaluate(() => { |
| 71 | + return document.getElementsByClassName('productreviews').length; |
| 72 | + }); |
| 73 | + if (!beerPage) return; |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | + const data = await page.evaluate(() => { |
| 76 | + const title = document.getElementsByTagName('h1')[0].innerText; |
| 77 | + const [brewery, beer] = title.split(':'); |
| 78 | + const description = document.getElementsByClassName('productreviews')[0].innerText; |
| 79 | + |
| 80 | + return { brewery, beer, description }; |
| 81 | + }); |
| 82 | + |
| 83 | + await Dataset.pushData(data); |
| 84 | + }, |
| 85 | +}); |
| 86 | +``` |
| 87 | + |
| 88 | +## [](#full-code) Full code |
| 89 | + |
| 90 | +If we create a new actor using the code below on the [Apify platform]({{@link apify_platform.md}}), it returns a nicely formatted spreadsheet containing a list of breweries with their beers with descriptions. |
| 91 | + |
| 92 | +Make sure to use the **apify/actor-node-puppeteer-chrome** image for your Dockerfile, otherwise the run will fail. |
| 93 | + |
| 94 | +```JavaScript |
| 95 | +import { Dataset, RequestList, PuppeteerCrawler } from 'crawlee'; |
| 96 | + |
| 97 | +const requestList = await RequestList.open(null, [{ |
| 98 | + requestsFromUrl: 'https://www.brewbound.com/sitemap.xml', |
| 99 | + regex: /http(s)?:\/\/www\.brewbound\.com\/breweries\/[^\/<]+\/[^\/<]+/gm, |
| 100 | +}]); |
| 101 | + |
| 102 | +const crawler = new PuppeteerCrawler({ |
| 103 | + requestList, |
| 104 | + async requestHandler({ page }) { |
| 105 | + const beerPage = await page.evaluate(() => { |
| 106 | + return document.getElementsByClassName('productreviews').length; |
| 107 | + }); |
| 108 | + if (!beerPage) return; |
| 109 | + |
| 110 | + const data = await page.evaluate(() => { |
| 111 | + const title = document.getElementsByTagName('h1')[0].innerText; |
| 112 | + const [brewery, beer] = title.split(':'); |
| 113 | + const description = document.getElementsByClassName('productreviews')[0].innerText; |
| 114 | + |
| 115 | + return { brewery, beer, description }; |
| 116 | + }); |
| 117 | + |
| 118 | + await Dataset.pushData(data); |
| 119 | + }, |
| 120 | +}); |
| 121 | + |
| 122 | +await crawler.run(); |
| 123 | +``` |
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