Google Sheets Tutorial: IMPORTXML

In this guide, I will introduce to you the IMPORTXML function in Google Sheets. This extremely useful function allows you to extract data from any URL. Whether you want to retrieve current financial news, stock prices, or other information from structured websites, IMPORTXML will help you. In this tutorial, we will practically focus on the finanzen.net website and go through some examples to illustrate how the IMPORTXML function works.

Main Insights

The IMPORTXML function in Google Sheets allows you to import structured data from any website into your spreadsheet. With this function, you can selectively extract different elements like headings, links, or other data.

Step-by-Step Guide

Let's start by applying the IMPORTXML function.

First, open the website from which you want to extract data. In our case, we are using the finanzen.net site. You can copy the URL by simply clicking on the address bar of your browser and then saving it to the clipboard using the Ctrl + C keyboard shortcut.

Now open a blank Google Sheet to start the process. Click on the cell where you want to import your data. Now, we enter the IMPORTXML function into the cell.

The syntax for the IMPORTXML function is as follows: IMPORTXML(url; xpath), where the URL is the webpage to import and the xpath specifies the specific path we want to retrieve.

Now we insert the copied URL into the function. Make sure to enclose the URL in quotation marks followed by a semicolon. For example: IMPORTXML("https://www.finanzen.net"; ...).

Next, we can specify the individual elements we want to fetch through the function. For instance, if we want to extract all H2 elements on the page, we add /H2 in quotation marks.

Once we have executed the function, the H2 elements will be imported directly into our table. You will receive a list of the latest financial news or articles published on the finanzen.net site.

After importing the H2 elements, you can make further customizations. For example, you can adjust the function to retrieve all links on the page. This can be done by adding //a to your XPath, which will output all links on the page.

You can easily inspect how the website is structured by opening your browser's developer tools (F12 key). This will give you an overview of the HTML code so you can better understand the structure and selectively fetch data.

By following all these steps, you will see the latest company updates and stock prices from finanzen.net directly in your Google Sheet. You can then use this data to conduct analysis or create reports.

In summary, the IMPORTXML function provides you with a powerful way to retrieve data from the internet and use it in Google Sheets. This function can be expanded as needed to import various types of data.

Summary

In this guide, you have learned how to selectively extract data from websites using the IMPORTXML function. You have learned how to correctly apply the function, use the correct syntax, and import various elements from a website.