brightonSEO Set 23 - Exploiting XPath in ScreamingFrog and Google Sheets

Transcript

1. Exploiting XPath in
   ScreamingFrog and
   Google Sheets
   Thiago Pojda
   SIXT
   Speakerdeck.com/pojda
   @tedois
   

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2. The Nerd
   ● Husband, dad
   ● Software Engineer
   ● SEO since 2008
   ● Since 2015, wesearch.media
   ● Since 2019, living in DE
   ● Since 2022, Director SEO @ SIXT
   

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3. The Nerd
   ● Husband, dad
   ● Software Engineer
   ● SEO since 2008
   ● Since 2015, wesearch.media
   ● Since 2019, living in DE
   ● Since 2022, Director SEO @ SIXT
   

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4. 2,000+ locations
   100+ countries
   270,000+ cars
   7,500+ employees
   20 SEOs
   

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5. SEO @ SIXT
   ●
   SEO Specialists
   ●
   Local, Content, Tech, Authority, Data
   ●
   Product specialists
   

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9. Understanding how sites are built
   and how to extract information
   from pages has made my
   analysis much more relevant to
   both me and my clients
   

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10. DOM
    DOM
    DOM
    

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11. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Object_Model
    

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12. XPath
    //div[@class=“content”]/text()
    

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13. Expanded syntax is handy but looks
    terrible
    /descendant-or-self::div[@class=“content”]/child::text()
    

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14. Abbreviated syntax is enough for
    99% of the cases
    /descendant-or-self::div[@class=“content”]/child::text()
    //div[@class=“content”]/text()
    

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15. Abbreviated syntax is enough for
    99% of the cases
    /descendant-or-self::div[@class=“content”]/child::text()
    //div[@class=“content”]/text()
    

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16. Specifier Meaning
    / Selects a direct child
    // Select any descendant or
    self
    @ Attribute
    .. Parent
    . Self
    

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17. Specifier Meaning
    [ and ] Official name is Predicates,
    you can think of them as
    filters
    * Any element
    function() … a function
    

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18. Useful functions
    ●
    text()
    ●
    contains(where, what)
    ●
    normalize-space(text)
    ●
    starts-with(where, what) & ends-
    with(where, what)
    ●
    sum()
    ●
    and, or
    

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19. //author[contains(.,"Matt")]
    Matches on all author nodes, in
    current node contains Matt
    (case-sensitive)
    

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20. //author[starts-with(.,"G")]
    Matches on all author nodes, in
    current node starts with G
    (case-sensitive)
    

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21. //author[matches(.,"Matt.*")]
    Regular expressions match
    Source: https://librarycarpentry.org/lc-webscraping/02-xpath/index.html
    License: CC BY 4.0
    

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22. //h3[1]
    The first H3 element
    

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23. //h3[last()]
    The last H3 element
    

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24. //h3[last()-1]
    The one before last H3 element
    

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25. //img[not(@alt)]
    Only images without alt attribute
    

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26. //img[@alt]
    Only images with alt attribute
    (will match empty alts)
    

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27. //img[string-length(@alt) >= 1]
    Only images with alt attribute
    longer than 1 character
    

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28. Source: https://librarycarpentry.org/lc-webscraping/02-xpath/index.html
    License: CC BY 4.0
    

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30. https://brightonseo.com/people/thiago-pojda
    

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31. 
    
    
    

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32. Formula Result
    =importxml(“//title”, D1) Thiago Pojda
    =importxml(“//h1”, D1) Thiago Pojda
    =join(,importxml(“//h1/following-
    sibling::*[1]”, D1))
    SIXT | Director of SEO & In-house Dad Joke
    Specialist
    =importxml(“//h1/following-
    sibling::*[2]”, D1)
    Thiago is a Brazilian SEO nerd who loves
    learning about (and nudging)
    consumer behaviours. Worked several years
    with SEO for big and small brands
    both at agencies and as in-house, he now leads
    the SEO Team at SIXT in
    Germany.
    =importxml(“//h1/..//a/@href”, D1) https://www.sixt.com/
    https://twitter.com/tedois
    https://linkedin.com/in/pojda
    

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34. Find XPath via SF
    

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38. ☹
    

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40. 🤩
    

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44. use
    cases
    

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45. #1
    Pages with SEO Text
    

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47. //article[@data-testid='streamSeoSection']
    

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48. Is my competitor using “SEO texts”?
    On which page types?
    Any category they’re doing it more?
    Why?
    WHY?
    WHY?
    

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49. Is my competitor using “SEO texts”?
    On which page types?
    Any category they’re doing it more?
    Why?
    WHY?
    WHY?
    

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50. Is my competitor using “SEO texts”?
    On which page types?
    Any category they’re doing it more?
    Why?
    WHY?
    WHY?
    

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53. Export your crawl (internal all)
    

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54. Categorise what you see
    

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55. Analyze
    

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56. #2
    Products per category
    

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58. //div[@id="listing"]//div[contains(text()
    ,"Ergebnisse")]/text()
    

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59. #3
    Mapping indexable filters
    

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62. //a[contains(@class,"pill")]/text()
    //a[contains(@class,"pill")]/@href
    

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63. Where
    to use
    

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65. Wrap up
    

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66. ●
    Think about elements you can use to
    breakdown your competitor’s strategy
    ●
    Find a great XPath for it, crawl,
    analyze
    ●
    Hate XPath until you love it
    

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67. Read more
    ●
    https://librarycarpentry.org/lc-
    webscraping/02-xpath/index.html
    ●
    https://www.searchenginejournal.com/xpath
    s-large-site-audits/329851/
    ●
    https://twitter.com/tedois
    

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68. Exploiting XPath in
    ScreamingFrog and
    Google Sheets
    Thiago Pojda
    SIXT
    Speakerdeck.com/pojda
    @tedois
    

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