How fast is the Yelp API?

Parseium's Yelp scraper API delivers responses in milliseconds to seconds, depending on your configuration.

Response times

Parse endpoint (you provide HTML)

  • Typical: 100-500ms
  • Use case: When you already have the HTML and just need extraction

Scrape endpoint (we fetch for you)

  • Business listings: 2-4 seconds
  • Review pages: 3-5 seconds
  • Search results: 2-4 seconds
  • With wait conditions: 4-10 seconds (configurable)

Yelp pages use moderate JavaScript and lazy loading, so expect 2-5 second response times for most scrape requests.

Performance features

Always-warm browsers

Unlike cold-start services, our browsers are pre-warmed and ready to go:

  • No 10-30 second browser startup delays
  • Consistent, predictable response times
  • Sub-second parsing once HTML is loaded

Managed proxies included

  • Automatic proxy rotation to avoid rate limits
  • High-quality residential proxies available
  • No need to maintain your own proxy infrastructure
  • Geographic targeting for location-specific content

Optimization tips

To get the fastest possible responses:

  1. Use parse endpoint: If you can fetch HTML yourself, parsing is near-instant
  2. Minimize wait times: Only wait as long as necessary for content to load
  3. Use domcontentloaded: Faster than networkidle for most Yelp pages
  4. Cache when possible: Business data doesn't change frequently—cache for hours or days
  5. Batch requests: Extract multiple businesses from search results pages
  6. Paginate wisely: Reviews are paginated—extract what you need per page

Rate limiting considerations

Yelp monitors scraping activity:

  • Reasonable pacing: Space requests appropriately (seconds to minutes)
  • Proxy rotation: Use different IPs to distribute load
  • Pattern variation: Avoid scraping in predictable patterns
  • Error handling: Back off if you encounter rate limiting

Timeout limits

  • Scrape endpoint: 120 second timeout
  • Parse endpoint: 60 second timeout

Most Yelp requests complete well within these limits.

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