Semalt: The Best Web Scraper To Extract Online Data
Content scraping or web scraping is the process of using special software or web application to accrue content from a website. Scraping appeals to webmasters and developers who want to get quick automated access to the information located on other sites.
Content Scraping Applications
Web scraping can be performed maliciously for the use of email marketing, spamming, and robocalls. Because of this, most webmasters prefer to stay away from it. However, if performed ethically web scraping can be a very powerful method to benefit from a variety of web projects.
How Can Scraping Be Used
Let's consider an online directory of all hotels in the area. If a website developer wants to aggregate each and every hotel, he or she will have to include them in the database manually. This process usually takes tens of thousands of hours to ensure that every hotel in the country is included. With a web scraper, that same webmaster can input search queries and gather that data automatically from a variety of sites.
Build or Buy Web Scraper?
If you want a web scraping tool, you can build one from scratch or use an already existing one. Most developers do not have the necessary skills, knowledge, tools, or resources to build out a scraping tool manually. The good news is that there are dozens of pre-built scrapers online.
Methods & Techniques Used in Web Scraping Software
If you're going to build your own scraper, you need to understand what technologies are involved in gathering data. Most scrapers are built out with HTML, using DOM parsing (parsing the document object model) to filter through the HTML to extract only the desired information. You have to identify divs, spans, classes, and list items of the data you want to scrape and input them into your settings.
Mozenda Scraping Technology
Mozenda scraper utilizes a specific browser rending technology to look just like a web browser. Use it to effortlessly browse through a site inner pages in order to gather the data you need. Using AJAX and Javascript, Mozenda establishes navigations and actions, as well as automates them for you.
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