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
Web 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 for data in order 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 to scrape a website for 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, we assume that’s the end of the process. In our 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 our research and experience with data scraping, we would recommend you use 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 for data from online web pages that do not require any technical skill set?
What is a Data Scraping Tool?
A web scraping tool is a type of software that’s made to grab important data from websites. If you’re gathering specific information from websites, chances are you’ll need to use a web scraper.
This tool, also called a website scraper, works by sending requests to a website and pulling out data from its pages. It looks at the content that’s visible to anyone visiting the site and is written in HTML.
Sometimes, it might also ask for information from internal APIs, like product prices or contact details, stored in a database. These details are then sent to a browser through HTTP requests.
There are different kinds of web scrapers and no-code data extraction tools available, each with features that can be adjusted to fit different projects.
Top Scraping Tools For No-code Data Extraction
Data scraping is a process by which users get desired data from online resources. It is a technique to scrape websites for data, 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, also known as non-technical web scraping, with the help of data scraping tools as mentioned below:
1. Crawlbase Crawling API
Crawlbase Crawling API allows developers and companies to scrape websites for data anonymously. It is also a handy tool for those who lack technical skill sets with the help of the user guide of Crawlbase. 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 can crawl and scrape websites for data 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.
encourage no-code data extraction and also include a user-friendly interface that provides 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 for data which is up-to-date and latest. 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 non-technical web scraping. 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.
How Non-Technical Web Scraping Benefits Your Business?
Your business can benefit from non-technical web scraping in ways that you haven’t even thought about. You can scrape a website for data for various domains, offering immense benefits to businesses of all sizes and industries.
Non-technical web scraping can be your strongest strategy, whether you’re in news and journalism, managing your online reputation, optimizing your website’s search engine performance, conducting competitor analysis, or generating leads through data-driven marketing strategies.
Additionally, it helps you well in real estate ventures, academic research endeavors, and numerous other fields. With its user-friendly interfaces and simplified processes, non-technical web scraping makes these functionalities accessible to everyone, regardless of their technical expertise.
Let’s see what more it has to offer:
Price Information
Non-technical web scraping is incredibly important for price intelligence, and it’s the top reason we’ve found for using this technique.
It’s a simple function. We gather product details and pricing information from online stores, then turn it into useful insights. This is super useful for modern e-commerce businesses who want to improve their pricing and marketing strategies using solid data.
The benefits of no-code data extraction for web pricing and price intelligence are numerous:
Dynamic Pricing: Adjusting prices in real-time to match market demand.
Revenue Optimization: Maximizing profits by pricing products competitively.
Competitor Monitoring: Keeping an eye on rival prices to stay ahead.
Product Trend Monitoring: Identifying popular products and adjusting strategies accordingly.
Brand and MAP Compliance: Ensuring that product prices meet brand and Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) guidelines.
Exploring Markets
Market research is super important—it’s all about getting the best information possible. With non-technical web scraping, you can gather tons of relevant data from websites of all shapes and sizes, helping in analysis and smart decisions worldwide.
Here’s what you can do with all that data:
- Check out market trends
- Study prices in the market
- Find the best way to enter the market
- Improve your products
- Keep an eye on your competition
Better Data for Finance
Get appropriate data to boost your investment strategy with specialized web data designed just for investors.
These days, making smart decisions in finance is all about having the best information. That’s why top companies are turning to data extraction without coding—it’s a simple and hassle-free way to make better strategic moves.
You can scrape a website for data to do the following:
- Check out SEC filings for insights
- Get a handle on company basics
- See what the public is saying
- Stay on top of the news
The Changing Face of Real Estate
Real estate has gone through big changes in the last twenty years because of technology. This has made things tough for traditional real estate companies but has also created new opportunities.
If you are an agent or a brokerage, you can scrape websites for data everyday to make smart decisions and stay leave the competition behind.
What can you do with this data?
- Figure out how much a property is worth
- Keep an eye on how many properties are empty
- Estimate how much money they can make from rentals
- Understand which way the market is going
Keeping Up with News and Content
You know how fast the world is going. Here, news and content can either be a big opportunity or a big threat to your business—it all depends on how you handle it.
If you rely on staying up-to-date with the latest news, or if your company often makes headlines, non-technical web scraping for news data is the perfect solution. It helps you keep track of, gather, and understand the most important stories in your industry.
Data extraction without coding can be beneficial for you in so many ways:
- Make better investment decisions
- Analyze how the public feels online
- Keep an eye on your competitors
- Stay informed about political campaigns
- Understand what people are saying about your brand
Getting More Leads
Getting new customers is really important for any business.
A report from Hubspot in 2020 says that 61% of marketers who focus on bringing in new customers said it’s really hard to get people to visit their websites and become leads. But you know, the good thing is that no-code data extraction can help. It lets you collect structured lists of potential customers from the internet.
Watching Your Brand
In today’s really competitive market, it’s super important to keep an eye on what people are saying about your brand online.
If you sell stuff on the internet and you need to make sure your prices are being followed, or if you just want to know what people think about your products, you can use web scraping to get that info.
So, whether you’re trying to protect your brand’s reputation or you want to make sure your products are getting the right kind of attention online, data extraction without coding is the perfect idea. And the best part? You don’t need to be a tech expert to do it.
Automating Business Processes
Sometimes, it can be tricky to get your hands on the data you need. Maybe you want to pull information from a website that belongs to you or your partner, but you don’t have an easy way to do it internally.
In situations like these, it’s a smart move to use web scraping. Instead of trying to navigate complex internal systems, you can simply create a scraper to gather the data you need.
So, whether you’re streamlining your processes or just trying to make things easier for yourself, web scraping is the way to go. And the best part? You don’t need to be a tech whiz to do it.
Keeping Track of Minimum Advertised Prices (MAP)
Making sure that your brand’s online prices match your pricing policy is really important. But with lots of different sellers and distributors, it’s impossible to check all the prices by hand.
That’s where web scraping comes in handy. It lets you keep an eye on your product prices without having to do any manual work.
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’s Crawling API allows developers and companies to scrape websites for data 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 for data 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 skill set and expertise to achieve your desired results when using data scraping to scrape websites.
