Web data scraping is a process to extract publicly available data from
third-party
websites using an automated software tool - web data scraper API. Usually, this
process includes requesting a specific page, reading the HTML program, and
sharing it with the user.
Let's understand web scrapers briefly. Companies, professional teams, and
developers mostly use them without much technical knowledge for data scraping
and processing activities. You may know about these typical cases where data has
an impactful role: product and price intelligence, lead generation, market
research, competitor analysis, supply chain management, inventory management,
competitor analysis, price intelligence, product development, etc.
But knowing what data scraping is, how it works, and what web scrapers are is
not helpful unless you know about the advantages and disadvantages of web
data scraping.
So let's walk through them and each of them briefly.
What are the Advantages of Web Data Scraping?
There are multiple beneficial aspects of using web data scraping for business
needs. So, we've listed some impactful advantages of web scraping below, which
industries and individuals can take advantage of and use to grow their business
using data scraping.
Automation
The first major advantage of web data scraping is automation, using developing
tools that simplify data extraction from several targeted websites in a single click.
You can also extract data without automation, but it will consume your time and
effort.
Let's consider whether somebody needs to copy and paste images, text, and
other data fields daily. Isn't it a time-consuming process? Luckily, web data
extraction tools make scraping simple and quick.
Affordable Cost
Manual data collection is tedious, time-consuming, boring, and expensive. Here
data scraping helps you with different digital technologies.
Several data scraping service providers in the market offer data extraction in a
budget-friendly and cost-effective manner. But everything depends on the data
quantity, functionality of the data scraping tool, and your goals. To optimize
expenses, you can use customized data scraping APIs by yourself.
Hassle-free Implementation
When a data scraping service starts collecting data, you should be confident to
obtain data from multiple websites, not just a single web page. You can do that in
a large volume with minimal investment to help you collect the best accurate
data.
Low Maintenance
At the time of maintenance, businesses often ignore costs while installing updates
or new services. Fortunately, data scraping doesn't need much maintenance.
Hence, in the long term, budgets, and services will not drastically change in
maintenance terms.
Speed
Quick turnaround is another worthy feature, where data scraping project
timelines to finish quickly. Imagine that a data extraction project usually takes a
few hours instead of weeks. But it also depends on difficulty, data quantity, and
scraping tools.
Data Accuracy
Web data extraction services are accurate with speed obsession. Manual data
collection has multiple demerits, including human error, that can lead to
significant problems in the future. As a result, correct data scraping for any kind of
helpful information is critical.
Manual error is a common factor while collecting data manually. But while
scraping data automatically, this is not the case. Though there may be some
minor errors, they don't create serious issues, as a quality team can correct them
instantly.
Efficient Data Management
By saving the scraped data with automated programs and software tools, your
employees or company will spend zero time copy-pasting data from multiple
websites. Hence they can concentrate more on development, research, and other
creative activities.
Instead of hectic work, web data extraction allows you to choose the required
data from several websites and use the correct software tools to gather it
properly. Furthermore, using automated programs and software tools helps you
save your scraped data securely.
What are the Disadvantages of Web Data Scraping?
Data Analysis
You may find processing the Scraped data an exhaustive and time-consuming
process. It is because the data comes in an HTML format, and you may not read it
easily if you don't know about HTML. Still, you can make it simple by converting it
into another format using the software.
Website Protection and Change Policies
Due to the regular HTML structure changes in the website, your data scraper may
break sometimes. Whether you write your data scraping program or use readily
available software, you must check for periodic maintenance to ensure your data
scraping funnels are functional and clean.
Sending multiple HTTP requests from the same server may seem suspicious, and
the source may block or ban the IP from accessing the website. To avoid this, you
can randomly use multiple residential proxy servers to send requests. Further, it is
better to use proxy servers if you want to scrape multiple web pages from a single
website.
Learning Curve
Web data extraction is not the only method of data scraping. It is difficult but
depends on every user's skill level. You may use an API, software, or your own
code to extract the required data.
Some tools need learning web data extraction processes in coding languages like
Python, JavaScript, Go, PHP, Ruby, Node.js, etc. Others may just need to watch a
few video tutorials and take the necessary action to scrape data. As a result, you
should learn each process without anyone's help.
Conclusion
Each process, product, or service has some advantages and disadvantages. We
have shared a few advantages and disadvantages of web data scraping in this
post. Contact the Product Data Scrape team anytime to learn more about product
data scraping, retail analytics, pricing intelligence, and eCommerce data
scraping.
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