[Answers](https://scrapfly.io/blog) / [data-parsing](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/data-parsing) / [How to select elements by text in XPath?](https://scrapfly.io/blog/answers/how-to-select-elements-by-text-in-xpath) # How to select elements by text in XPath? by [Bernardas Alisauskas](https://scrapfly.io/blog/author/bernardas) Oct 28, 2022 1 min read [\#data-parsing](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/data-parsing) [\#xpath](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/xpath) [ ](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fanswers%2Fhow-to-select-elements-by-text-in-xpath "Share on LinkedIn") To select elements by text using XPath we can either match the `text()` value or use it in a `contains()` function. For example, to select `websites` we would use `//a[contains(text(), "website")]` selector. See this interactive example: <html> <a>ignore</a> <a>website</a> <a>WEBSITE</a> </html> Note that `contains()` method is **case sensitive**. For case-insensitive selections we can use `matches` (sometimes called `re:test()`) function: <html> <a>ignore</a> <a>website</a> <a>WEBSITE</a> </html> Scale Your Web Scraping Anti-bot bypass, browser rendering, and rotating proxies, all in one API. Start with 1,000 free credits. No credit card required 1,000 free API credits Anti-bot bypass included [Start Free](https://scrapfly.io/register) [View Docs](https://scrapfly.io/docs/onboarding) Not ready? Get our newsletter instead. ## Explore this Article with AI [ ChatGPT ](https://chat.openai.com/?q=Summarize%20this%20page%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fanswers%2Fhow-to-select-elements-by-text-in-xpath) [ Gemini ](https://www.google.com/search?udm=50&aep=11&q=Summarize%20this%20page%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fanswers%2Fhow-to-select-elements-by-text-in-xpath) [ Grok ](https://x.com/i/grok?text=Summarize%20this%20page%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fanswers%2Fhow-to-select-elements-by-text-in-xpath) [ Perplexity ](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/new?q=Summarize%20this%20page%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fanswers%2Fhow-to-select-elements-by-text-in-xpath) [ Claude ](https://claude.ai/new?q=Summarize%20this%20page%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fanswers%2Fhow-to-select-elements-by-text-in-xpath) ## Related Articles [ data-parsing xpath ### Ultimate XPath Cheatsheet for HTML Parsing in Web Scraping Ultimate companion for HTML parsing using XPath selectors. This cheatsheet contains all syntax explanations with interac... ](https://scrapfly.io/blog/posts/xpath-cheatsheet) [ python data-parsing ### Parsing HTML with Xpath Introduction to xpath in the context of web-scraping. How to extract data from HTML documents using xpath, best practice... ](https://scrapfly.io/blog/posts/parsing-html-with-xpath) [ blocking tools ### How Browser Fingerprinting Works and How to Defend Against It Learn how browser fingerprinting works, from canvas to WebGPU, and discover developer-focused techniques to bypass detec... ](https://scrapfly.io/blog/posts/how-browser-fingerprinting-works) ## Related Questions - [ Q How to find HTML elements by text value with BeautifulSoup ](https://scrapfly.io/blog/answers/how-to-find-html-elements-by-text-with-beautifulsoup) - [ Q How to find elements without a specific attribute in BeautifulSoup? ](https://scrapfly.io/blog/answers/how-to-find-elements-without-attribute-in-beautifulsoup) - [ Q How to select elements by class in XPath? ](https://scrapfly.io/blog/answers/how-to-select-elements-by-class-in-xpath) - [ Q How to select elements by ID in XPath? ](https://scrapfly.io/blog/answers/how-to-select-elements-by-id-in-xpath) Extract structured data with AI, **1,000 free credits** [Start Free](https://scrapfly.io/register)