All you need to know about Web Scraping!

If you are looking for web scraping services, then this blog will address all your queries related to web scraping. Starting from the basics of web scraping to all the benefits you can acquire from web scraping, we are going to address all. Just stay on screen.

What is Web Scraping?

Web scraping is the extraction of useful information from a website, often websites carry piles of data, acquiring the only valuable data from the masses can be a daunting task, and it demands effort. The web scraping services not only extract the relevant data but also help in importing it into other formats.

Can Web Scraping be done manually?

On a small scale, web scraping can be done manually, but it slow and tiring task. Thus professionals use automated tools and software to get the job done accurately and swiftly.

Can you do web scraping on your own? Is it integral to hire a professional for web scraping?

Websites come in different forms and complexity level. So it isn’t easy to extract the data from every single site with the same level of ease and proficiency. So it is often recommended to hire professionals for web scraping so that they can give you valuable output.

What are the benefits of Web Scraping?

Web scraping has so many potential benefits that can be availed according to the application. Depending upon the request, there are many benefits of web scraping. These are as follows:

  • extracting stock prices into an app API
  • extracting data from YellowPages to generate leads
  • extracting data from a store locator to create a list of business locations
  • extracting product data from sites like Amazon or eBay for competitor analysis
  • removing sports stats for betting or fantasy leagues
  • extracting site data before a website migration
  • extracting product details for comparison shopping
  • extracting financial data for market research and insights

These are a few general applications of web scraping. However, the list will be endless if we keep on stating the uses of web scraping. The same is the case with the purposes of the data that is acquired through web scraping. The information that has been obtained from the web scraping can be filtered and organized in a way that can be utilized in endless ways.

How does Web Scraping work?

Automated web scrapers use different algorithms to acquire the desired data from the websites.

  • Firstly, the web scraper will be given URLs to load for scraping.
  • The scraper then loads the entire HTML code for the page in question.
  • More advanced scrapers will render the entire website, including CSS and Javascript elements.
  • Then the scraper will either extract all the data on the page or specific data selected by the user.
  • Mostly user goes through the process of selecting the specific data they want from the page.
  • Then the web scraper will output all the data.
  • The collected data will be changed into a format that is more useful to the user.
  • Most web scrapers convert extracted data to a CSV or Excel spreadsheet, while more advanced scrapers will support other formats such as JSON, which can be used for an API.
  • For instance, you might want to scrape an Amazon product page for prices and models but are not necessarily interested in product reviews.
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