Web Data Scraping is the method of extracting data from the Internet, and it has been part of information systems for years. Data scraping is a priceless technology since it is not feasible to manually copy and paste data all the time, especially when the data is enormous. Data becomes valuable when we analyze it and identify important business trends to scrape websites. Data must be pulled into a database to be explored, reorganized, and sorted out so it can be accessible.
Getting An Insight into the Process to Scrape Websites
Data scraping is the process of fetching data from available online resources. An ideal crawling API spies through the HTML code of the web page. Then fetch the web page visible data in raw format to be used for dynamic purposes. Data scraping can be done in the following three ways.
- Content Scraper by Individuals with Technical Skills
- Point and Click Web Scraper
- Scrape Information without Technical Skill Sets
Historical Insight to Scrape Information from Online Sources
Since 1989, the World Wide Web has been using web scraping APIs to scrape websites to perform all sorts of data analytics. A few years later, Matthew Gray, a researcher at MIT’s computer science department, created the world’s first Perl-based web robot called World Wide Web Wanderer. A web crawler like this one is used to measure the size of the World Wide Web to determine how big it really is.
Wanderer, the first web robot, was developed as a tool for scraping data rather than being used as a web robot. There was a reason for this in the 1990s, and there was not an abundance of information (data) available quickly. However, as internet users increased and a wave of digitization began, web scraping became increasingly popular.
When you find data on Google, confirm the source accuracy, and you are done, I assume that’s the end of the process. In my opinion, that is not enough. There are many ways to get the information you need to support your business. However, not all information has a structured format that allows you to use it straightforwardly for analysis.
Based on my research and experience with data scraping, I would recommend you to go for using data scraping software to scrape websites if you are not a professional programmer. It takes a lot of time and effort to produce the technical programs that scrape websites, so this is considered a specialty. Despite this, what if there was a software tool you could use to scrape websites from online web pages that do not require any technical skill set?
Top Data Scraping Tools to Scrape Websites Without Technical Skill Sets
Data scraping is a process by which users get desired data from online resources. It is a technique to scrape websites, but it requires a specific skill set and expertise to gain your desired results. However, you can now scrape websites without having a piece of technical knowledge, with the help of data scraping tools as mentioned below;
1. Crawlbase Crawling API
Crawlbase Crawling API allows developers and companies to scrape websites anonymously. It is also a handy tool for those who lack technical skill sets with the help of the available user guide of Crawlbase (formerly ProxyCrawl). Data from large and small sources can be scrapped. Crawlbase supports multiple websites and platforms. Scrapers seeking high-quality data and anonymity online choose this tool over other options. Crawlbase scrapes and crawls websites without requiring servers, infrastructure, or proxies. The resolution of captchas prevents users from being blocked. New users get 1,000 requests free of charge. Crawling API can collate data from LinkedIn, Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Instagram, and Amazon within minutes.
Crawlbase Crawling API’s Features include a user-friendly interface to provide users with easy and flexible use with dynamic site extraction. Web crawling is ultra-secure and safe with the software. Using this method, crawlers and scrapers remain anonymous. Scrapers are protected against IP leaks, proxy failures, browser crashes, CAPTCHAs, and website bans.
2. Octoparse
Data extraction from the web is easy with Octoparse. It extracts bulk online data. A spreadsheet allows businesses to view extracted data for analysis. The GUI makes it easy to use for any project. Cloud extraction, IP rotation, scheduling, and API integration can benefit users.
Octoparse is an efficient tool that is easy to use and helps to scrape websites, monitor the competitor’s online activities, and ultimately assist in designing an improved and effective marketing strategy. Sentiment analysis and inventory optimization have also become easy with the help of using this tool.
3. Scraper API
Scraper API helps you scrape websites without worrying about coding web pages without having a technical skill set. You can easily scrape any website with the help of JS rendering, geotargeting, or residential proxy servers. The Scraper API automatically prunes slow proxies from their pool and guarantees unlimited bandwidth at speeds up to 100 Mb/s, which is perfect for crawling sites at high speed. Scraper API provides unlimited bandwidth with up to 99.9% up-time guarantee because it has a presence of over fifty plus geo-locations and over 40 million IP addresses around the globe. And they also provide 24/7 professional support to their users. You won’t have to worry about your API requests getting blocked due to the anti-bot detection and bypassing built into the API. So, you will never face the issues of securing with Scraper API.
4. ParseHub
ParseHub is also a great tool to scrape websites without having an in-depth technical knowledge of programming. XPATH, Regular Expressions, and CSS selectors are embedded in this content scraper to implement XPATH. ParseHub intelligently provides automatic IP rotation and fetches data from HTML elements, tables, tags, and maps. The code loads the data with the help of AJAX and JavaScript and extracts the text and attributes of the HTML code. The program also uses forms and inputs to scrape information from websites. It efficiently scrapes websites by crawling through navigations and pagination on the web pages of dynamic websites.
5. Zyte
Zyte platform is one of the leading services in the industry for building, deploying, and running web crawlers to scrape websites while providing up-to-date data. It is easy to review the collected data in an easy-to-use stylized interface where they are presented in a way that can be easily viewed. The Zyte platform provides a program known as Portia, an open-source platform created for scraping websites. You don’t have to know any programming and possess any technical skill sets to use this tool. You can create templates by selecting elements from the page you want to scrape, and Portia will do the rest for you.
The script will create an automated spider that will scrape pages that are similar to the one on the website and scrape them. The Cloud has several spiders that crawl thousands to billions of pages, and Web Scraping Cloud is another such service. Zyte’ users can crawl sites using multiple IP addresses and locations without the fear of getting blocked by tracking/proxy management as long as they use Zyte’s Crawler to crawl sites. As a means for the intelligent downloader to achieve this, it distributes requests among several internal nodes; it uses a proprietary algorithm to minimize the risk of getting banned, and it throttles the request of each internal node to a site to reduce the chances of getting banned.
Conclusion
In information systems, web data scraping has been used for years. Since it is not feasible to manually copy and paste data all the time, data scraping has proven to be a priceless technology, especially in large data sets where manual copying and pasting are not feasible. Crawlbase (formerly ProxyCrawl)’s Crawling API allows developers and companies to scrape websites anonymously without revealing their identities. With the help of the available user guides, a Crawlbase service is also a valuable tool for those without technical skills to use effectively. Whether the data comes from a large or a minor source can be scrapped. Crawlbase supports multiple websites and platforms. Scrapers choose this tool over other choices because it provides high-quality data and anonymity online.
Analyzing data and identifying important trends to scrape websites makes it valuable. It is necessary to pull data into a database to explore, reorganize, and sort it. It would be best if you had a distinctive skillset and expertise to achieve your desired results when using data scraping to scrape websites.
