Web data extraction tool with an easy point-and-click interface for modern web Free and easy to use web data extraction tool for everyone. With a simple point-and-click interface, the ability to extract thousands of records from a website takes only a few minutes of scraper setup.

Web Scraper utilizes a modular structure that is made of selectors, which instruct the scraper on how to traverse the target site and what data to extract. Thanks to this structure, data mining from modern and dynamic websites such as Amazon, Tripadvisor, eBay, as well as from lesser-known sites is effortless. [1]

Figure 1. The Overview of Web Scraping

Figure 1 shows the web scraper will be given one or more URLs to load before 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 before the project is run. [2]

Web Scraping used for:

Web Scraping is used for getting data. Access to relevant data, having methods to analyze it and performing intelligent actions based on analysis can make a huge difference in the success and growth of most businesses in the modern world. Data collection and analysis is important even for government, non-profit and educational institutions.

The following are few of the many uses of Web Scraping:

1. In eCommerce, Web Scraping is used for competition price monitoring.
2. In Marketing, Web Scraping is used for lead generation, to build phone and email lists for cold outreach.
3. In Real Estate, Web Scraping is used to get property and [3] agent/owner details
.
4. Web Scraping is used to collect training and testing data for Machine Learning projects

Web scraping tool:

A web scraping tool is a software program that’s designed specifically to extract (or ‘scrape’) relevant information from websites. You’ll almost certainly be using some kind of scrape tool whenever you are collecting data from web pages programmatically.

A scraping tool typically makes HTTP requests to a target website and extracts the data from a page. Usually, it parses content that is publicly accessible and visible to users and rendered by the server as HTML. Sometimes it also makes requests to internal application programming interfaces (APIs) for some associated data – like product prices or contact details – that are stored in a database and delivered to a browser via HTTP requests. [4]

References:

1. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/web-scraper-free-web-scra/jnhgnonknehpejjnehehllkliplmbmhn?hl=en
2. https://www.parsehub.com/blog/what-is-web-scraping/
3. https://www.webharvy.com/articles/what-is-web-scraping.html
4. https://www.zyte.com/learn/what-is-web-scraping/

Cite this article:

Thanusri swetha J (2022), Overview of Web Scraping, AnaTechmaz, pp. 62