Turn Any Website Into Structured Data with Custom Parser

Oxylabs' Custom Parser extracts user-specified data from raw HTML into structured JSON format. Simply describe what you want to parse in plain English, and the built-in AI will analyze the HTML to create parsing logic with element selectors. The parsing engine then applies these instructions to extract the necessary information and convert it into structured JSON. Essentially, Oxylabs saves time and resources by letting you focus on data instead of analyzing web structures and managing parsers.

The difficulty of building parsers ranges from moderate to difficult, especially as data volume increases. Managing tens or hundreds of parsers becomes unsustainable when website structures constantly change and parsers require fixes.

Oxylabs simplifies this challenge. You can generate parsers using AI, save them as hosted presets, and enable self-healing so they automatically adapt to website changes.

For a detailed comparison of building vs. buying parsers, see our blog post: What Is Parsing of Data?

Parsing is the process of transforming raw data into a readable format. A parser is the tool or software that performs this transformation using predefined logic and rules.

Custom Parser is a free feature that enhances Web Scraper API capabilities. To use it, you need an active Web Scraper API subscription, or you can claim a free trial for testing.

Dedicated parsers are pre-built parsers developed and maintained by Oxylabs for specific popular websites. If a dedicated parser is not available for your target website, you can create your own parsing logic using Custom Parser. 

Important: You can only use one parser type per request—either a dedicated parser or a custom parser, not both.

XPath and CSS selectors are two different methods for selecting specific elements within HTML or XML documents. CSS selectors are generally easier to use, while XPath expressions are more powerful but rather difficult to use.

Learn more: XPath vs. CSS Selectors

Yes, you can save your own parsers by creating Parser Presets that are hosted on our system. Instead of writing new rules for every job, you can save your parser once and apply it across multiple tasks, use self-healing to automatically update it as websites change, and track its performance.