Web Data Scraping
By
james Def
Sat Aug 31, 2024 from 03:00 PM to 04:00 PM
Timezone : Europe/Paris
Online event
Web Data Scraping
In October 2020, Facebook filed a complaint in US federal court against two companies accused of using two malicious Chrome browser extensions that allow data scraping without authorization from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Amazon.
Both extensions collected public and non-public user data. The companies sold this data, which was then used for marketing intelligence.
In this article, we'll look at how to scrape data legally and tell you about seven web scraping services that don't require you to write code. If you want to scrape on your own, check out our selection of scraping tools and libraries.
What is data scraping?
Data scraping or web scraping is a method of extracting information from a website or application (in a human-readable form) and saving it to a table or file.
How this data is used
Web scraping or scrape emails has a wide range of applications. For example, marketers use it to optimize processes.
1. Price tracking
By collecting information about products and their prices on Amazon and other platforms, you can monitor your competitors and adapt your pricing policy.
2. Market and competitive intelligence
If you want to penetrate a new market and want to evaluate the opportunities, data analysis will help you make an informed and adequate decision.
3. Monitoring social networks
YouScan, Brand Analytics and other social media monitoring platforms use scraping.
4. Machine learning
On the one hand, machine learning and AI are used to increase the productivity of scraping. On the other hand, the data obtained with its help is used in machine learning.
The Internet is an important source of data for machine learning algorithms.
5. Website modernization
Companies are migrating legacy websites to modern platforms. To export data quickly and easily, they can use scraping.
6. News monitoring
Scraping data from news sites and blogs allows you to track topics that interest you and saves time.
7. Analysis of content effectiveness
Bloggers or content creators can use scraping to extract data about posts, videos, tweets, etc. into a table, like the one in the video above.
Data in this format:
- easy to sort and edit;
- just add to DB;
- available for reuse;
- can be converted into graphs.
Web scraping services
Scraping requires proper parsing of the page source code, rendering JavaScript, converting the data into a readable form and, if necessary, filtering. Therefore, there are many ready-made services for performing scraping.
Here are the top 7 scraping tools that do the job well.
1. Octoparse
Octoparse is an easy-to-use scraper for programmers and others. It has a free plan and a paid subscription.
Peculiarities:
- works on all sites: with infinite scroll, pagination, authorization, drop-down menus, AJAX, etc.
- saves data to Excel, CSV, JSON, API or DB.
- data is stored in the cloud.
- scraping on a schedule or in real time.
- Automatic IP change to bypass blocking.
- ad blocking to speed up loading and reduce the number of HTTP requests.
- You can use XPath and regular expressions.
- Supports Windows and macOS.
- free for simple projects, $75/month for standard, $209/month for professional, etc.
2. ScrapingBee
ScrapingBee Api uses headless browser and proxy changing. Also has API for scraping Google search results.
Peculiarities:
- JS rendering;
- proxy rotation;
- can be used with Google Sheets and Chrome browser;
- free up to 1000 API calls, $29/month for freelancers, $99/month for businesses, etc.
3. ScrapingBot
ScrapingBot provides several APIs: Raw HTML API, Retail Websites API, Real Estate Websites Scraping API.
Peculiarities:
- JS rendering (headless Chrome);
- quality proxy;
- up to 20 simultaneous requests;
- geotags;
- Prestashop addon that integrates into your website to monitor competitors' prices;
- free plan for 100 credits, $47/month for freelancers, $120/month for startups, $361/month for businesses, etc.
4. scrapstack
Scrapestack is a real-time web scraping REST API that allows you to scrape websites in milliseconds using millions of proxies and bypassing captcha.
Peculiarities:
- simultaneous API requests;
- JS rendering;
- HTTPS encryption;
- more than 100 geolocations;
- free plan for up to 1000 requests, basic plan for $19.99/month, professional plan for $79.99/month, etc.
5. Scraper API
Scraper API works with proxies, browsers and captcha. It is easy to integrate. You only need to send a GET request to the API with your API key and URL.
Peculiarities:
- JS rendering;
- geotags;
- has a pool of residential/mobile proxies for scraping prices, search results, monitoring social networks, etc.
- 1000 API calls for free, hobby plan is $29/month, startup plan is $99/month, etc.
6. ParseHub
ParseHub is a web scraping service that does not require programming skills.
Peculiarities:
- clear graphical interface;
- data export to Excel, CSV, JSON or access via API;
- XPath, regular expressions, CSS selectors;
- free plan, standard plan - $149/month, etc.
7. Xtract.io
Xtract.io is a flexible platform that uses AI, ML and NLP technologies.
It can be configured to scrape and structure data from websites, social media posts, PDF files, text documents, historical data, and email.
Peculiarities:
- scraping data from directories, financial data, rental data, geolocation data, company and contact data, reviews and ratings.
- a pre-configured system for automating the entire data extraction process;
- cleaning and validation of data according to specified rules;
- export to JSON, text, HTML, CSV, TSV, etc.
- proxy rotation and captcha passing for real-time data scraping.
- flexible pricing policy.
Date
Sat Aug 31, 2024 from 03:00 PM to 04:00 PM
Timezone : Europe/Paris