avatarL Javier Tovar

Summary

Web scraping is an automated technique used to extract data from websites, which can streamline various tasks such as data collection and market research, but requires careful consideration of legal and ethical boundaries.

Abstract

Web scraping is a method of programmatically collecting information from web pages by simulating human browsing behavior. It is used to automate repetitive tasks like data extraction and form filling, saving time and reducing human error. The process involves identifying target websites, gathering URLs, retrieving HTML content, extracting the required data, and saving it in structured formats. While web scraping offers advantages such as cost reduction, increased processing speed, and handling large datasets, it must be conducted within the confines of intellectual property laws and website terms of service. Legal use of web scraping includes price comparison, market research, and data analysis for business intelligence. However, the technique can also be misused for spamming or unauthorized data collection, emphasizing the need for responsible use.

Opinions

  • The author acknowledges the tedious nature of manual data collection and appreciates the efficiency that web scraping brings to such tasks.
  • There is an emphasis on the importance of adhering to legal and ethical standards when performing web scraping to avoid negative impacts on websites and potential legal consequences.
  • The author suggests that web scraping is a skill that can be learned and applied in various beneficial ways, such as developing a script to automate form-filling.
  • The article implies that web scraping is widely accepted and utilized, with Google as a prime example of a company that relies heavily on this technology.
  • There is a cautious tone regarding the potential for web scraping to be used unethically, such as for sending spam or violating intellectual property rights.
  • The author encourages readers to consider the broader implications of web scraping, including the need to respect the terms of service and privacy policies of target websites.

Web Scraping: What is it and what is it used for?

Find out how Web Scraping can help you with your routine tasks

Surely you have ever had to collect information from a website manually by copying and pasting text many times, or maybe you have had to fill out the same forms over and over again, no doubt these are exhausting and boring tasks.

Did you know that you can automate these processes by creating a process that does it for you?

On this occasion, we are going to learn what Web Scraping is and its usefulness.

What is Web Scraping?

Web scraping is a technique used to extract information from web pages in an automated way through software programs that simulate the navigation of a human on the web either by using the HTTP protocol manually or by embedding a browser in an application.

In short, it’s a program developed to browse and do what you would do on the web. It’s great.

The Web Scraping process

This would be the general web scraping process described in simple steps:

  • Identify the target website.
  • Collect the URLs of the pages from which you want to extract data.
  • Make requests to these URLs to get the HTML of the page.
  • Inspect the HTML returned by the site to collect the data.
  • Save the data in a JSON or CSV file or some other structured format.

These would be the main steps to follow for this technique. However, during development, there are many more challenges that need to be solved.

For example, keep the scraper if the design of the website changes, managing proxies to avoid banning problems, the appearance of captchas, etc.

Advantages of using Web Scraping

With this technique we achieve:

  • Reduce workload.
  • Cheap personnel costs.
  • Increase the speed of the processes.
  • Eliminate human error.
  • Handling large amounts of data.
  • Getting data in actionable formats.

When and how can we use it?

Practically, with Web Scraping, it is possible to browse and duplicate the content of a website or a large part of it. Now you may ask, is that legal? Yes, with some exceptions, but still many companies use it.

Moreover, the company that enjoys scraping a lot is Google, and this makes a lot of sense because for its search engine to work has to be a scraper par excellence with the entire network.

Here are some cases where Web Scraping is used:

  • To achieve a better price comparison with the competition.
  • Conducting market research.
  • Collect data for Big Data analysis, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence.
  • Nurture a database relevant to your business.
  • Perform a website migration.
  • Collect and offer data from several websites.
  • Generate alerts about changes in a website.
  • Collect product datasheets.
  • Extracting information from pdf publications.

These are just a few examples, and I think you are already imagining many more, but I have to tell you something, there is information that we can not always get. We must be careful with the sites we want to do the scraping, as it is not always legal.

Is web scraping legal?

Scraping is not always legal. Scrapers must take into account the intellectual property rights of websites. Web scraping has very negative consequences for some online stores and suppliers, for example, if the positioning of your page is affected due to aggregators.

Scraping is legal, as long as the data collected is freely available to third parties on the web. To guarantee the legality of web scraping following must be taken into consideration:

  • Observe and comply with intellectual property rights. If the data is protected by these rights, it cannot be published anywhere else.
  • The operators of the pages have the right to resort to technical processes to avoid web scraping.
  • If user registration or a user contract is required for the use of the data, these data may not be used by scraping.
  • The concealment of advertising, terms, conditions, or disclaimers through scraping technologies is not allowed.

Although web scraping is allowed in many cases, it can be used for destructive or illegal purposes. For example, this technology is often used to send spam. Senders can take advantage of it to accumulate email addresses and send spam messages to these recipients.

What would be a good idea to use Web Scraping?

The reason for extracting data from the web is due to the need to make decisions capable of delivering concrete benefits. To explain it simply, you can think of a person looking for the same product in different stores.

After some time, he will have obtained information about the different values in the market. As a result of knowing the prices, he will be free to choose the option that suits him best.

It can also be a small script that simply selects the checkboxes in a form. Personally, I find it very boring to fill out known forms and it would be better to have a process that does it for me.

Conclusion

Web Scraping is a powerful tool to automate routine tasks and save valuable time for other tasks.

You can also obtain large amounts of data that you could not achieve manually. But you have to be cautious when executing it in order not to fall into irregular practices.

Thanks for reading!

Remember, you must take into account the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policies of the websites before scraping. So be responsible for that.

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References:

Web Scraping
Automation Tools
Automatization
Web Development
Programming
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