A method for identifying client states, receives a set of paths representative of a document object model (DOM) associated with a web page of a rich internet application and for each path in the set of paths received, extracts a subtree, as subtree X, for a current path. The method traverses all known sub-paths under the current path and delete corresponding subtrees from subtree X and reads contents of and determines states of subtree X to form a state X. The state X is added to a set of current states and responsive to a determination no more paths exist, returns the set of current states of the rich internet application.