Understanding content selection
Content selection is the process of identifying the primary readable region of a web page. This article explains a deterministic approach using simple HTML parsing rules.
The first rule checks for a main element. If found, its contents are selected as the primary content region.
Why deterministic?
Deterministic rules produce the same output every time, which makes them easy to test and debug. Heuristic fallbacks are used only when explicit semantic markers are absent.
- Rule one:
mainelement - Rule two:
articleelement - Rule three:
role=mainattribute