XPath following-sibling axis: XPath node positioning

I. Grabbing packets for why always be anti-climbing? Try this combo

What's the biggest headache for people doing data crawling? Eight out of ten will sayThe structure of the web page changes all the timeI'm not sure if you're going to be able to do this! Especially when it comes to the kind of list data, today with div arrangement, tomorrow change table layout. This time we have to move out of our XPath tool, especially thefollowing-sibling axisThis treasure feature.

Take a live example: the price tag of an e-commerce site is always followed by the name of the product, but in the middle of it are always stuffed with some recommendation ads. With the ordinary way of positioning quasi blind, this time you have to write this:

//span[contains(text(),'item A')]/following-sibling::div[@class='price']

What does this code mean? It is to catch the first price div after "Product A", but the problem comes - it is easy to be blocked by the IP if you catch it too often, then you have to invite theDynamic Residential Proxy for ipipgo, automatically switching IP addresses to make the target site think it's being viewed by a real person.

Second, following-sibling axis practical manual

This shaft is not a showpiece, and mastering a few points can save 80% time:

1. Don't be myopic.: By default, it only looks for brother nodes next to each other, if you want to look for farther nodes, you have to add conditions.
2. Matching filtration is more accurate: Filter by class name or attribute
3. Multi-story structures to beware of: Note the nested hierarchy of parent nodes

Take for example this page structure:

  
Title 1
  
Description A
  
Title 2
  
Description B

To grab the description that corresponds to each title, you have to:

//li[@class='item']/following-sibling::li[@class='desc'][1]

It's a good time to useExclusive static proxy for ipipgoIt is especially suitable for business scenarios that require continuous monitoring, with fixed IPs for long-term stable crawling.

Third, the correct way to open the proxy IP

When it comes to proxy IPs, many newbies are prone to stepping into these pits:

• ❌ Use free proxies - slow and insecure!
• ❌ Repeated use of a single IP - blocked in minutes
• ❌ No validation of availability - code runs and hangs

recommendedipipgo's intelligent scheduling system, which automatically detects IP availability. Their API return format is super simple:

{
  "proxy": "123.123.123.123.123:8888",
  "expire_time": "2024-03-20 12:00:00"
}

It's super easy to use with the requests library:

import requests
proxy = ipipgo.get_proxy() Here the ipipgo API is called
response = requests.get(url, proxies={"http": proxy, "https": proxy})

IV. Practical QA First Aid Kit

Q: What should I do if I can't always locate the element?
A: First check if the content is dynamically loaded, you can use Selenium + proxy IP combination. ipipgo supports Selenium's auto-configuration, their official website has a detailed tutorial.

Q: What should I do if XPath does not work after the page revamp?
A: It is recommended to prepare 3 sets of localization scenarios, polling with try statements. Meanwhile, use ipipgo's different locale IP test, some locale servers may load different page structure.

Q: What should I do if I need to crawl both English and Chinese websites?
A: ipipgo's global nodes cover 190+ countries, you can specify the residential IP of the English region to catch the foreign language station, and use the IP of the domestic server room to catch the Chinese station.

V. The doorway to selecting agency services

There are all sorts of agency services on the market, so remember these three hard indicators:

theirIntelligent Routing FunctionEspecially suitable for XPath crawling: automatically match the IP of the region where the target site is located, reducing the probability of anti-climbing. For example, if you crawl Japanese websites, you can use Tokyo IP, and if you crawl American websites, you can use Los Angeles node.

Lastly, XPath positioning is a handicraft, and only with more practice can you achieve results. Encounter anti-climbing don't just, flexible IP switching is the king's way. Use a good ipipgo such professional tools, capture the efficiency of at least three times. What specific problems are welcome to go to their official website to find technical support, 7 × 24 hours online technical team is quite reliable.