The process of collecting structured web data in an automated fashion is known as web data scraping. Some people also refer to web data scraping as web data extraction. Web data scraping is widely known for price intelligence, price monitoring, lead generation, market research, news monitoring, and the list goes on. 

There are numerous businesses and people making use of web data scraping to use the publicly available data to make smart decisions. Web scraping can be done manually and automated both ways. But most businesses opt for automated tools as it is economical and fast-paced. 

People and businesses consider web data scraping to be a simple task. But the reality is quite opposite of what people imagine. Due to the numerous shapes and forms of the websites, web scraping is a hard skill to master. 

So, if you are also looking for web scraping, the best tools for it, and what purposes it serves, then you have come to the right place. Go through this post mentioned below to learn in-depth about web data scraping. 

Basics of Web Data Scraping 

Web data scraping is divided into two parts: one is a web crawler and another one is a web scraper. The crawler leads the scraper sometimes by hand and sometimes through the internet. Let us learn the difference between the two.

The Crawler 

A web crawler is a kind of artificial intelligence that browses the internet and searches for content by following the links. Usually, the very first thing is to crawl the websites which in turn will get you the Url’s to pass on to the scraper. 

The Scraper 

A web scraper is a specialized tool designed to extract the data from the web page. These are not the same and differ greatly in design and complexities based on the project. The crucial thing over here is data locators which find the data which you are looking for. 

Uses of Web Data Scraping 

Web data scraping has numerous applications to its credit. With the help of the data scraping tool, you can automate the extraction of data from other websites, and that too real quick. In addition to this, it ensures that the data you have extracted is organized so that it becomes easy for you to analyze the data and use it for your business purposes. 

The e-commerce industry is making the most out of web data scraping for competitor price monitoring. It is because this is the practical way to get an insight into the competitor’s products, reviews, services, and many more things. By doing so, they can fine-tune their strategies and stay ahead of their competitors. 

Numerous market research organizations and analysts depend on web data extraction to keep track of online products, their reviews, pricing, articles, and feedback. Moreover, data scraping tools can be used to extract insight from news stories. Likewise, the researchers and analysts use it to assess the financial health of the companies. 

Web Scraping Tools 

Web scraping tools are software developed to simplify the process of data extraction from websites. It is quite useful for businesses and can save much of their time but it requires a great deal of time and effort. 

But no worries as we have eased out the process for you. Go through some of the best web scraping tools and get the job done right. 

Scrape. do 

The foremost and best web data scraping tool is scrape. do. It is scalable, fast-paced, and easy to use. It is regarded as the best web scraping tool due to its cost efficiency and advanced set of features. 

The tool is not only economical but also offers the best performance ratio in the market. No matter how hard the websites are, it does not charge anything extra from businesses and people. 

Some of its features include customizable, javascript render, rotating proxies, unlimited bandwidth, and many more to go. 

Parsehub 

The second best tool is Parsehub which is widely used to extract data. The tool has its desktop app and provides you with a variety of features as compared to the other available web scraping tools. 

Some of its features include rest API, Infinite scrolling pages, regular expressions, IP rotation, cloud-based, extracts data from tables and maps, scheduled collection and the list goes on. 

ScrapingBee

The next best web scraping tool for businesses and people is ScrapingBee. With this tool, you can manage thousands of headless instances using the latest chrome version and render your web page quite fast. 

Its advanced features include rotating proxies, price monitoring, scraping search engine results pages, growth hacking, and javascript rendering. 

Grepsr

Grepsr is the best web data scraping tool for lead generation programs and competitive data collection. In addition to this, you can also do news aggregation and financial data collection. When you do lead generation with this tool, it helps you to extract email addresses. 

The best way to generate quality leads is by using pop-ups as it is super easy and highly effective. With this, you can create subscription pop-ups, and advanced targeting rules and collect quality leads from the website. 

Some of the popular features of Grepsr include financial and market data, custom data requirements, API ready, social media data, pricing, and competitive data. 

Scarpingdog 

This web data scraping tool makes it easy for you to handle proxies, browsers, and captcha. With the help of this tool, you can get the HTML data of any webpage in a single API call. Getting this tool gives you an edge over your competitors as it also has a Linkedin API available. 

Some other prominent features of scrapingdog include webhooks, rotating IP address, rendering Javascript, and headless chrome. All those looking for web scraping should opt for this one from developers to non-developers. 

Brightdata 

Brightdata is also another great web data scraping tool. Like other tools, it is also an open-source web scraper tool for data extraction. It provides the customized and automated flow of data by collecting the data. 

Its advanced set of features includes a search engine crawler, Proxy API, Browser extension, Data unblocker, open-source proxy management, and others. 

How to Extract Data using Web Scraping? 

Due to the plenty of free web scraping solutions available, the process of extracting data from the web has become automated and much easier than it was before. Some of the web scraping solutions include simple point-and-click scraping solutions. 

These solutions aim at non-specialist developer-focused applications having extensive configuration and management options. For instance, if you are viewing a certain website, you can simply cut and paste information into a spreadsheet. This is one way of extracting data and that too free. 

But as this process is done manually, it is going to be slow, inefficient, and full of errors. Consequently, the best way forward is to look for automated web data extraction. It is because the automated process allows you to extract data from lots of web pages in minimal time only. 

Besides this, it helps you to organize the results in a neatly organized structure. Thankfully the web data scraping tools have made it much easier for businesses to do so. But using these tools requires the programmers to have coding proficiency to configure and manage. 

But no need to worry if you are unaware of coding as some easy-to-use scrapers are running as a browser extension with a simple interface and are ideal for non-specialists. But such tools will be limited in the variety and volume of data they let you scrape as they are less sophisticated than their developer-focused counterparts. 

Process of Web Data Scraping 

The web data scraping process can also be done on one’s own or you can outsource it also. Here’s what the web data scraping process looks like if you prefer doing it on your own: 

 

  • Figure out the target website 
  • Gather the URLs of the pages from where you want to extract data 
  • Request URLs to get the HTML of the page 
  • Use locators to locate data in the HTML 
  • Lastly, save data in CSV file or other structured formats

 

But if you prefer to outsource the web data extraction process to some company or developer, then the process will be quite different from what it is when you do it on your own. Go through the below-mentioned steps to learn how outsourcing web data scraping works. 

 

  • Firstly, the team collects the information regarding your project. 
  • The team of web data scrapers writes the scrapers and sets the infrastructure. This is to collect your data and accordingly structure it based on your project’s requirements. 
  • Finally, the data is delivered to you in your desired format and frequency. 

 

No matter how specific your project parameters are, you can get the desired data from the flexibility and scalability of the web scraping tools. Be it fashion retailers longing to get data about the upcoming trends or investors concerned about their stock positions, web data scraping has made it easy for all. 

Wrapping Up

Going through this detailed post on web data scraping and its other things must have given you in-depth information about its tools and uses. Every business should choose the web scraping tool according to their project’s requirements and choose the best one. Want to outsource this? Reach out to our experts at Skilled Pragati and get started with it.