How to Scrape Competitor Pages to Markdown With Decodo

Copying competitor landing pages by hand is a massive time sink. You click, scroll, select text, and paste into docs—only to end up with broken formatting and zero structure. 

We’ve tested dozens of scraping tools, and markdown conversion beats every other method for competitor research. It strips away HTML clutter and leaves clean headings, links, and copy ready for analysis. 

Decodo API handles proxies and blocks automatically, turning any competitor landing page into a markdown file in seconds. 

No coding needed. Just paste a URL and get instant, readable content for your SEO analysis and content strategy work right now.

Why Markdown Beats HTML for Competitor Research 📊

Most marketing teams waste hours copying competitor content manually or fighting with messy HTML code. Markdown conversion solves this problem by giving you structured content without the technical clutter.

Think about opening a competitor’s page source. You see hundreds of lines filled with CSS classes, JavaScript tags, and tracking pixels. None of that helps your analysis. Web scraping to markdown strips away the noise and leaves you with headings, paragraphs, links, and images in a format anyone can read.

Content strategists and SEO specialists use this method to build competitor comparison documents. The lightweight nature of markdown files makes them perfect for storing in version control systems like GitHub. 

You can track changes to competitor pages over time and spot when they update their value propositions or call to action buttons.

Automate Scraping for Multiple Competitor Page🚀

Real competitive analysis requires looking at more than one page. Most companies have several landing pages for different products or campaigns.

Create a list of target URLs and loop through them. This batch approach saves time compared to manual extraction:

import requests

import time

competitors = [

    "https://competitor1.com/product-page",

    "https://competitor2.com/features",

    "https://competitor3.com/pricing"

]

for idx, page_url in enumerate(competitors):

    payload = {"url": page_url, "markdown": True}

    response = requests.post(api_url, headers=headers, json=payload)

    if response.status_code == 200:

        content = response.json()["data"]["markdown"]

        filename = f"competitor_{idx+1}_analysis.md"

        with open(filename, "w", encoding="utf-8") as f:

            f.write(content)

        time.sleep(2)  # Respect rate limits

The sleep function prevents overwhelming servers. Ethical scraping practices keep your IP address safe from blocks.

How to Clean Your Scraped Markdown?

Scraped files sometimes need quick fixes. Leftover HTML tags, broken links, or weird spacing can sneak through. A few simple checks keep your data clean.

Check for broken link formats by scanning for standard Markdown patterns. Links should look like this: [text](url). Fix any that got mangled during conversion.

Remove any stray HTML tags using a basic find and replace. Look for angle brackets and clean them out.

Fix spacing issues by removing extra blank lines between paragraphs. Most text editors have a replace function that handles this fast.

Tools like markdownlint catch formatting errors automatically. Run your files through before saving them for later analysis.

Find Your Competitor’s Conversion Strategies

Once you have clean markdown files, compare them to find patterns. Look at how competitors structure their landing page design and what keywords they emphasize.

Content hierarchy tells you what matters most to your rivals. Count heading levels to see if they bury important information or put it upfront. Check how many times they mention specific features or benefits.

Search for conversion optimization elements like testimonials, pricing tables, and CTA placement. Markdown format makes text searching simple with any code editor.

Create comparison sheets listing each competitor’s unique value proposition. Track their messaging strategy and note any changes over time. This competitive intelligence feeds directly into your own landing page improvements.

Wrapping Up Your Workflow

Exporting competitor landing pages to Markdown gives you clean, analyzable data without the headache of parsing HTML. Tools like Decodo make this process simple for teams of any skill level.

The Markdown format keeps your competitive research organized and accessible. You can share files easily, search through them quickly, and spot winning strategies faster than ever before.

Start small with a few key competitors, then expand your analysis as you get comfortable with the process. The insights you gain will directly improve your own landing pages and marketing campaigns.