Scraper Pro RSS: plan controlled website-to-feed extraction

Check existing publishing options first

Inspect the source for RSS, Atom, a documented export, or another supported way to obtain the required material. A publisher-maintained output can reduce dependence on presentation markup. Define the fields your project needs before choosing an extraction method: perhaps title, article address, date, and a short description are sufficient.

Confirm the permitted scope and relevant source terms for the intended use. Consider the publisher's robots rules and operate within the request policy you have established. Robots instructions describe crawler behavior; they are not a substitute for deciding what content your project may collect and republish. Keep that decision with the source record.

Build a small extraction contract

For each source, document the page pattern, selected content region, link-resolution rules, and required fields. Keep a sample response and the expected normalized items. Prefer selectors tied to meaningful structure over deeply nested positions that merely happen to work in one sample. Mark optional values as optional instead of supplying invented dates or descriptions.

1. Retrieve only approved addresses with bounded time, response size, and redirect behavior.
2. Identify candidate items and resolve their article links against the correct source address.
3. Extract the permitted fields and retain the original source reference for every accepted item.
4. Validate required values, deduplicate carefully, and send uncertain cases to a review queue.

Treat layout changes as a maintenance event

A selector that returns zero items may indicate a redesign, a temporary error page, or a genuinely empty collection. Track the last successful extraction and compare unusual results with a saved fixture. Stop automatic publication when required fields disappear or candidate counts change unexpectedly. An explained pause is easier to repair than a feed filled with navigation labels or repeated promotional text.

Publish an original, traceable result

For example, an internal reading list might publish a title, an attributed short note, and the original article address after review. Keep collection time separate from the source publication date. Preserve a stable item identity across minor edits, and retain enough evidence to explain a later correction. Expand to another source only after its extraction contract and maintenance responsibility are clear. Each additional website is an ongoing integration to manage.

Primary documentation

• RFC 9309: Robots Exclusion Protocol
• OWASP SSRF Prevention Cheat Sheet