Limits & troubleshooting

Occasionally a scrape returns nothing, or a page hides its content behind JavaScript. This page covers what WebToSheets cannot do yet, along with quick fixes for the most common issues you may run into.

Known limits

• No auto-refresh yet. Your formulas recalculate when Google Sheets recalculates, when you re-enter them, or when you click Refresh all in the sidebar. Scheduled refresh is on the roadmap.
• JavaScript-heavy pages may return incomplete data with generic selectors. Content that a page renders with JavaScript after it loads cannot be extracted for the moment, though support is on the roadmap.
• No CSS selectors. Only named selectors and XPath are supported.
• You should make sure your use complies with the target website's terms and applicable law. For more information, see our Terms.

Diagnosing an empty result

An empty result is the most common surprise. Sometimes you may wonder why a formula comes back blank. The usual causes, in order of likelihood, are:

• The selector does not match. You should double-check spelling and case, since selectors are case-sensitive (reviews_count, not Reviews_Count). Thankfully, a wrong selector returns empty and costs no credit.
• The site changed its layout. Redesigns can break selectors. You may re-check your selector, or switch to a named one if one is available.
• The data is rendered by JavaScript on a site without a dedicated extractor (see the limit above).
• The URL is not the page type you think. A search URL will not expose product selectors, and vice versa. You may check the platform page for the supported URL format.

Not sure which of your scrapes are failing? The sidebar's This sheet tab flags every formula with an error, so you can re-run just those.

Refreshing your data

To refresh your data, open the sidebar's This sheet tab and click Refresh all (or Refresh errors). Results are cached for 15 minutes, so a refresh within that window returns the cached values instantly and costs no credit. To force a genuinely fresh pull, use Clear cache first.

Matching the right URL shape

Dedicated extractors only trigger on specific URL shapes, for example an Amazon /dp/ product page or an eBay /itm/ listing. URLs that do not match fall through to the generic scraper, which only understands generic selectors and XPath. Each platform page lists exactly which URLs it supports.