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How to implement incremental crawling technology to prevent crawlers on e-commerce platforms?

Created on 2025-06-26 12:15:33
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Incremental crawling technology is used to fetch only newly updated or added data from a website, reducing redundant requests and server load. To implement it on e-commerce platforms, follow these steps:

  1. Track Last Crawl Time: Store the timestamp of the last successful crawl. During the next crawl, only request pages or items modified after this time.

    • Example: If the last crawl was at 2023-10-01 12:00:00, fetch products or listings updated after this timestamp.

  2. Use Timestamps or Versioning: E-commerce platforms often include last_modified fields or version numbers in their APIs or HTML metadata. Use these to filter new/updated content.

    • Example: An API endpoint like /products?updated_after=2023-10-01T12:00:00Z can return only recent changes.

  3. Hash-Based Comparison: For static pages, compute a hash (e.g., MD5) of the page content during each crawl. Compare hashes to detect changes.

    • Example: If the hash of a product page differs from the previous crawl, reprocess it.

  4. Database Deduplication: Store crawled data with unique identifiers (e.g., product IDs). Skip reprocessing if the ID already exists in the database.

    • Example: Before saving a product, check if its SKU is already in the database.

  5. Leverage Webhooks or Feeds: Some platforms provide real-time updates via webhooks or scheduled data feeds (e.g., product feeds). Use these instead of crawling.

    • Example: Subscribe to a product feed that updates hourly, eliminating the need for frequent crawls.

For scalable crawling and data storage, Tencent Cloud offers services like:

  • Tencent Cloud CVM (Cloud Virtual Machine): Run crawlers efficiently with scalable compute resources.
  • Tencent Cloud COS (Cloud Object Storage): Store crawled data securely.
  • Tencent Cloud TDSQL (Database Service): Manage deduplicated data with high performance.
  • Tencent Cloud API Gateway: Integrate with platform APIs for incremental data fetching.

These tools help optimize incremental crawling while minimizing resource usage.