V2EX `/go/free` Public Topic Parser

Session: V2EX account validation + freebie harvesting.

What it does

Parses the public /go/free node (and any other /go/<node>) without authentication. Extracts topic ID, title, author, reply count, and full URL.

Why not the API?

V2EX does not expose a public API for node topic lists. The site serves HTML with div.cell rows.

Working selectors (current as of 2026-07-02)

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

def parse_v2ex_node(node='free', max_pages=5):
    session = requests.Session()
    session.headers.update({'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0'})
    topics = []
    
    for page in range(1, max_pages + 1):
        url = f'https://www.v2ex.com/go/{node}?p={page}'
        r = session.get(url, timeout=15)
        r.raise_for_status()
        soup = BeautifulSoup(r.text, 'html.parser')
        
        for cell in soup.select('div.cell'):
            title_link = cell.select_one('span.item_title a')
            if not title_link:
                continue
            topics.append({
                'id': title_link['href'].split('/')[-1],
                'title': title_link.get_text(strip=True),
                'url': 'https://www.v2ex.com' + title_link['href'],
                'author': (cell.select_one('a[href^="/member/"]') or {}).get_text(strip=True),
                'replies': (cell.select_one('a.count_livid') or {}).get_text(strip=True) or '0',
            })
    
    return topics

HTML structure

<div class="cell">
  <span class="item_title">
    <a href="/t/1234567">Title text</a>
  </span>
  <a href="/member/author">author</a>
  <a class="count_livid" href="/t/1234567#reply123">42</a>
</div>

Common mistakes

Searching for div.cell.item — the item class is absent in current markup.
Using browser tools for bulk public scraping — slower and prone to connection drops.

Rate limits

Same 600 req/hr/IP as the rest of V2EX.
No auth required, so no token to rotate; use proxies if you need high volume.

Next steps

Cross-reference authors with validated account dumps (e.g. v2ex_valid_with_passwords.json).
For replies containing gift codes, fetch each topic page and search for keywords (Netflix, Spotify, key, token, 兑换, 邀请码).

2.2 KiB Raw Permalink Blame History

V2EX /go/free Public Topic Parser