Patent ID: 7072890

Claim:
A method for improved web scraping, comprising the steps of: obtaining a results page for a given web site/query; determining whether the source of said results was previously requested; IF said source was previously requested, THEN retrieving known links from database; comparing said known links to links on said results page; determining whether “N” good links have been found; IF said “N” good links have been found, THEN identifying said “N” good links; building a stack of potential “begin hits” HTML tags and strings for each of selections “1” through “N”; comparing entries of said stack to find “best” combination of said “begin hits” HTML tags and strings; writing to and updating configuration file so as to terminate process; OTHERWISE; returning to said step of parsing said results page to identify all links; OTHERWISE; parsing said results page to identify all links; presenting list of said links to user; manually selecting “N” good links; and returning to said step of identifying said “N” good links.