Know about what is screen scraping!

Know about what is screen scraping!

In present scenario, world is becoming hugely competitive. Business owners always look excited to get benefits as well as best results. They are eager to grow their business hugely as well as effective manner. Currently, majority of businessmen are available online. There are several industries that are available over the web today and trying to make effective promotion of their products as well as services with the support of their particular websites. Majority of people are now using internet services for several purposes. People use online facilities to get contact details of other users. More to the point, businessmen usually look excited to get software that can make them able to get the preferred data in an instant manner. In this case, screen scraping tool will be the best option among all. At present, there are a number of people who are excited to know that What Is Screen Scraping . As far as screen scrapping is concerned, it is a process that makes you able to extract huge data from website in a very little time.

There would be really no other best option instead of screen scraping software when it comes to mining huge amount of data from websites in a very short time. This specific program is getting huge attention of the people nowadays. This program is extremely capable to extract huge amount of data from websites in a matter of seconds. It has helped business professionals a lot in terms of growing their popularity and benefit both. With the support of this program, one can easily extract relevant data in a hassle-free manner. Not only this, this software can also easily drag out large files from the websites. Moreover, this software is also capable to drag images from some particular website with so much ease.

This software can not only be used for the purpose of extracting data from websites but also you can submit and fill forms with its support. There is need of too much time when it comes to filling or copying the data manually. This software is now a renowned as well as one of the fastest means of extracting data from websites. This software not only helpful in simplifying data extraction process but also helps websites to become friendlier for the users. To know more about what is screen scrapping, one can also take help of internet facility to fulfill their purpose.

Source:http://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/6086054?articleid=6086054

Web Scraping: Top 15 Ways To Use It For Business.

Web Scraping: Top 15 Ways To Use It For Business.

Web Scraping also commonly known as Web Data extraction / Web Harvesting / Screen Scrapping is a technology which is loved by startups, small and big companies. In simple words it is actually an automation technique to extract the unorganized web data into manageable format, where the data is extracted by traversing each URL by the robot and then using REGEX, CSS, XPATH or some other technique to extract the desired information in choice of output format.

So, it's a process of collecting information automatically from the World Wide Web. Current web scraping solutions range from the ad-hoc, requiring human effort, to even fully automated systems that are able to convert entire web sites into structured information. Using Web Scraper you can build sitemaps that will navigate the site and extract the data. Using different type of selectors the Web Scraper will navigate the site and extract multiple types of data - text, tables, images, links and more.

Here are 20 ways to use web scraping in your business.

 1. Scrape products & price for comparison site – The site specific web crawling websites or the price comparison websites crawl the stores website prices, product description and images to get the data for analytic, affiliation or comparison.  It has also been proved that pricing optimization techniques can improve gross profit margins by almost 10%. Selling products at a competitive rate all the time is a really crucial aspect of e-commerce. Web crawling is also used by travel, e-commerce companies to extract prices from airlines’ websites in real time since a long time. By creating your custom scraping agent you can extract product feeds, images, price and other all associated details regarding the product from multiple sites and create your own data-ware house or price comparison site. For example trivago.com

2. Online presence can be tracked- That’s also an important aspect of web scraping where business profiles and reviews on the websites can be scrapped. This can be used to see the performance of the product, the user behavior and reaction. The web scraping could list and check thousands of the user profiles and the reviews which can be really useful for the business analytics.

3. Custom Analysis and curation- This one is basically for the new websites/ channels wherein the scrapped data can be helpful for the channels in knowing the viewer behavior. This is done with the goal of providing targeted news to the audience. Thus what you watch online gives the behavioral pattern to the website so they know their audience and offer what actually the audience like.

4. Online Reputation - In this world of digitalization companies are bullish about the spent on the online reputation management. Thus the web scrapping is essential here as well. When you plan your ORM strategy the scrapped data helps you to understand which audiences you most hope to impact and what areas of liability can most open your brand up to reputation damage. The web crawler could reveal opinion leaders, trending topics and demographic facts like gender, age group, GEO location, and sentiment in text. By understanding these areas of vulnerability, you can use them to your greatest advantage.

5. Detect fraudulent reviews - It has become a common practice for people to read online opinions and reviews for different purposes. Thus it’s important to figure out the Opinion Spamming: It refers to "illegal" activities example writing fake reviews on the portals. It is also called shilling, which tries to mislead readers. Thus the web scrapping can be helpful crawling the reviews and detecting which one to block, to be verified, or streamline the experience.

6. To provide better targeted ads to your customers- The scrapping not only gives you numbers but also the sentiments and behavioral analytic thus you know the audience types and the choice of ads they would want to see.

7. Business specific scrapping – Taking doctors for example: you can scrape health physicians or doctors from their clinic websites to provide a catalog of available doctors as per specialization and region or any other specification.
  
8. To gather public opinion- Monitor specific company pages from social networks to gather updates for what people are saying about certain companies and their products. Data collection is always useful for the product’s growth.
  
9. Search engine results for SEO tracking- By scraping organic search results you can quickly find out your SEO competitors for a particular search term. You can determine the title tags and the keywords they are targeting. Thus you get an idea of which keywords are driving traffic to a website, which content categories are attracting links and user engagement, what kind of resources will it take to rank your site.

10. Price competitiveness- It tracks the stock availability and prices of products in one of the most frequent ways and sends notifications whenever there is a change in competitors' prices or   in the market. In ecommerce, Retailers or marketplaces use web scraping not only to monitor their competitor prices but also to improve their product attributes.  To stay on top of their direct competitors, nowadays e-commerce sites have started closely monitoring their counterparts. For example, say Amazon would want to know how their products are performing against Flipkart or Walmart, and whether their product coverage is complete. Towards this end, they would want to crawl product catalogs from these two sites to find the gaps in their catalog. They’d also want to stay updated about whether they’re running any promotions on any of the products or categories. This helps in gaining actionable insights that can be implemented in their own pricing decisions. Apart from promotions, sites are also interested in finding out details such as shipping times, number of sellers, availability, similar products (recommendations) etc. for identical products.

11. Scrape leads- This is another important use for the sales driven organization wherein lead generation is done. Sales teams are always hungry for data and with the help of the web scrapping technique you can scrap leads from directories such as Yelp, Sulekha, Just Dial, Yellow Pages etc. and then contact them to make a sales introduction. To crapes complete information about the business profile, address, email, phone, products/services, working hours, Geo codes, etc. The data can be taken out in the desired format and can be used for lead generation, brand building or other purposes..
 
12. For events organization – You can scrape events from thousands of event websites in the US to create an application that consolidates all of the events together.

13. Job scraping sites : Job sites are also using scrapping to list all the data in one place. They scrape different company websites or jobs sites to create a central job board website and have a list of companies that are currently hiring to contact. There is also a method to use Google with LinkedIn to get lists of people by company which are geo-targeted by this data.  The only thing that was difficult was to extract from the professional social networking site is contact details,  although now they are readily available through other sources by writing scraping scripts methods to collate this data. For example naukri.com

14. Online reputation management : Do you know 50% of consumers read reviews before deciding to book a hotel. Now scrape review, ratings and comments from multiple websites to understand the customer sentiments and analyze with your favorite tool.

15. To build vertical specific search engines- This is new thing popular in the market but again for this a lot of data is needed hence web scrapping is done for as much public data as possible because this volume of data is practically impossible to gather.

Web scraping can be used to power up the following businesses like Social media monitoring Travel sites, Lead generation, E-commerce, Events listings, Price comparison, Finance, Reputation monitoring and the list is never ending
Each business has competition in the present world, so companies scrape their competitor information regularly to monitor the movements. In the era of big data, applications of web scraping is endless. Depending on your business, you can find a lot of area where web data can be of great use.  Web scraping is thus an art which is use to make data gathering automated and fast.

Source:https://www.datascraping.co/doc/articles/86/businesses-use-of-web-scraping

What is Web Scraping Services ?

What is Web Scraping Services ?

Web scraping is essentially a service where an algorithm driven process fetches relevant data from the depths of the internet and stores it on a centralized location (think excel sheets) which can be analyzed to draw meaningful and strategic insight.

To put things into perspective, imagine the internet as a large tank cluttered with trillions of tons of data. Now, imagine instructing something as small as a spider to go and fetch all data relevant to your business. The spider works in accordance with the instructions and starts digging deep into the tank, fetching data with an objective orientation, requesting for data wherever it is protected by a keeper and being a small spider, it fetches data even from the most granular nook and corner of the tank. Now, this spider has a briefcase where it stores all collected data in a systematic manner and returns to you after its exploration into the deep internet tank. What you have now is perfectly the data you need in a perfectly understandable format. This is exactly what a web scraping service entails except the fact that it also promises working on those briefcase data and cleaning it up for redundancies and errors and presents it to you in the form of a well consumption-ready information format and not raw unprocessed data.

Now, there is a high possibility that you may be wondering how else can you utilize this data to extract the best RoI- Return on Investment.

Here's just a handful of the most popular beneficial uses of web scraping services-

Competition Analysis

The best part about having aggressive competitors is that you just by alert monitoring of their activities, you can outpace them by enhancing off of their big move. The industries are growing rapidly, only the informed are ahead of the race.

Data Cumulation

Web scraping ensures aggregating of all data in a centralized location. Say goodbye to the cumbersome process of collecting bits and pieces of raw data and spending the night trying to make sense out of it.

Supply-chain Monitoring

While decentralization is good, the boss needs to do what a boss does- hold the reins. Track your distributors who blatantly ignore your list prices and web miscreants who are out with a mission to destroy your brand. It’s time to take charge.

Pricing Strategy

Pricing is of the most crucial aspect in the product mix and your business model- you get only one chance to make it or break it. Stay ahead of the incumbents by monitoring their pricing strategy and make the final cut to stay ahead of time.

Delta Analytics

The top tip to stay ahead in the game is to keep all your senses open to receive any change. Stay updated about everything happening around your sphere of interest and stay ahead by planning and responding to prospective changes.

Market Understanding

Understand your market well. Web scraping as a service offers you the information you need to be abreast of the continuous evolution of your market, your competitors’ responses and the dynamic preferences of your customer.

Lead Generation

We all know that a customer is the sole reason for the existence of a product or business. Lead generation is the first step to acquiring a customer. The simple equation is that more the number of leads, higher is the aggregate conversion of customers. Web scraping as a service entails receiving and creating a relevant – relevant is the key word – relevant lead generation. It is always better to target someone who is interested or needs to avail the services or product you offer.

Data Enhancement

With web extraction services, you can extract more juice out of the data you have. The ready to consume format of information that web scraping services offer allows you to match it with other relevant data points to connect the dots and draw insights for the bigger picture.

Review Analysis

Continuous improvement is the key to building a successful brand and consumer feedback is of the prime sources that will let you know where you stand in terms of the goal – customer satisfaction. Web scraping services offer a segue to understanding your customers’ review and help you stay ahead of the game by improvising.

Financial Intelligence

In the dynamic industry of finance and ever-volatile investment industry, know what’s the best use of your money. After all, the whole drama is for the money. Web scraping services offer you the benefit of using alternative data to plan your finances much more efficiently.

Research Process

The information derived from a web scraping process is almost ready to be run through for a research and analysis function. Focus on the research instead of data collection and management.

Risk & Regulations Compliance

Understanding risk and evolving regulations is important to avoid any market or legal trap. Stay updated with the evolving dynamics of the regulatory framework and the possible risks that mean significantly for your business.

Botscraper ensures that all your web scraping process is done with utmost diligence and efficiency. We at Botscraper have a single aim -  your success and we know exactly what to deliver to ensure that.

Source:http://www.botscraper.com/blog/What-is-web-scraping-service-

WEB SCRAPING SERVICES-IMPORTANCE OF SCRAPED DATA

Web scraping services are provided by computer software which extracts the required facts from the website. Web scraping services mainly aims at converting unstructured data collected from the websites into structured data which can be stockpiled and scrutinized in a centralized databank. Therefore, web scraping services have a direct influence on the outcome of the reason as to why the data collected in necessary.
It is not very easy to scrap data from different websites due to the terms of service in place. So, the there are some legalities that have been improvised to protect altering the personal information on different websites. These ‘rules’ must be followed to the letter and to some extent have limited web scraping services.
Owing to the high demand for web scraping, various firms have been set up to provide the efficient and reliable guidelines on web scraping services so that the information acquired is correct and conforms to the security requirements. The firms have also improvised different software that makes web scraping services much easier.
Importance of web scraping services
Definitely, web scraping services have gone a long way in provision of very useful information to various organizations. But business companies are the ones that benefit more from web scraping services. Some of the benefits associated with web scraping services are:
Helps the firms to easily send notifications to their customers including price changes, promotions, introduction of a new product into the market. Etc.
It enables firms to compare their product prices with those of their competitors
It helps the meteorologists to monitor weather changes thus being able to focus weather conditions more efficiently
It also assists researchers with extensive information about peoples’ habits among many others.
It has also promoted e-commerce and e-banking services where the rates of stock exchange, banks’ interest rates, etc. are updated automatically on the customer’s catalog.
Advantages of web scraping services
The following are some of the advantages of using web scraping services
Automation of the data
Web scraping can retrieve both static and dynamic web pages
Page contents of various websites can be transformed
It allows formulation of vertical aggregation platforms thus even complicated data can still be extracted from different websites.
Web scraping programs recognize semantic annotation
All the required data can be retrieved from their websites
The data collected is accurate and reliable
Web scraping services mainly aims at collecting, storing and analyzing data. The data analysis is facilitated by various web scrapers that can extract any information and transform it into useful and easy forms to interpret.
Challenges facing web scraping
High volume of web scraping can cause regulatory damage to the pages
Scale of measure; the scales of the web scraper can differ with the units of measure of the source file thus making it somewhat hard for the interpretation of the data
Level of source complexity; if the information being extracted is very complicated, web scraping will also be paralyzed.
It is clear that besides web scraping providing useful data and information, it experiences a number of challenges. The good thing is that the web scraping services providers are always improvising techniques to ensure that the information gathered is accurate, timely, reliable and treated with the highest levels of confidentiality.


Article Source:-http://www.loginworks.com/blogs/web-scraping-blogs/191-web-scraping-services-importance-of-scraped-data/

Data Extraction Product vs Web Scraping Service which is best?

Product v/s Service: Which one is the real deal?

With analytics and especially market analytics gaining importance through the years, premier institutions in India have started offering market analytics as a certified course. Quite obviously, the global business market has a huge appetite for information analytics and big data.

While there may be a plethora of agents offering data extraction and management services, the industry is struggling to go beyond superficial and generic data-dump creation services. Enterprises today need more intelligent and insightful information.

The main concern with product-based models would be their incapability to extract and generate flexible and customizable data in terms of format. This shortcoming can be majorly attributed to the almost-mechanical process of the product- it works only within the limits and scope of the algorithm.

To place things into perspective, imagine you run an apparel enterprise. You receive two kinds of data files. One contains data about everything related to fashion- fashion magazines, famous fashion models, make-up brand searches, apparel brands trending and so on. On the other hand, the data is well segregated into trending apparel searches, apparel competitor strategies, fashion statements and so on. Which one would you prefer? Obviously, the second one- this is more relevant to you and will actually make life easier while drawing insights and taking strategic calls.


In the scenario where an enterprise wishes to cut down on overhead expenses and resources to clean the data and process it into meaningful information, that’s when the heads turn towards service-based web extraction. The service-based model of web extraction has customization and ready-to-consume data as its key distinction feature.

Web extraction, in process parlance is a service that dives deep into the world of internet and fishes out the most relevant data and activities. Imagine a junkyard being thoroughly excavated and carefully scraped to find you the exact nuts, bolts and spares you need to build the best mechanical project. This is metaphorically what web extraction offers as a service.

The entire excavation process is objective and algorithmically driven. The process is carried out with a final motive of extracting meaningful data and processing it into insightful information. Though the algorithmic process leads to a major drawback of duplication, unlike a web extractor (product), wweb extraction as a service entails a de-duplication process to ensure that you are not loaded with redundant and junk data.

Of the most crucial factors, successive crawling is often ignored. Successive crawling refers to crawling certain web pages repetitively to fetch data. What makes this such a big deal? Unwelcomed successive crawling can lead to attracting the wrath of the site owners and the high probability of being sued for a class action suit.

While this is a very crucial concern with web scraping products , web extraction as a service takes care of all the internet ethics and code of conduct while respecting the politeness policies of web pages and permissible penetration depth limits.

Botscraper ensures that if a process is to be done, it might as well be done in a very legal and ethical manner. Botscraper uses world class technology to ensure that all web extraction processes are conducted with maximum efficacy while playing by the rules.

An important feature of the service model of web extraction is its capability to deal with complex site structures and focused extraction from multiple platforms. Web scraping as a service requires adhering to various fine-tuning processes. This is exactly what botscraper offers along with a highly competitive price structure and a high class of data quality.

While many product-based models tend to overlook the legal aspects of web extraction, data extraction from the web as a service covers it much more ingeniously. While associating with botscraper as web scraping service provider, legal problems should be the least of your worries.

Botscraper as a company and technology ensures that all politeness protocol, penetration limits, robots.txt and even the informal code of ethics is considered while extracting the most relevant data with high efficiency.  Plagiarism and copyright concerns are dealt with utmost care and diligence at Botscraper.

The key takeaway would be that, product-based web extraction models may look appealing from a cost perspective- that too only at the face of it, but web extraction as a service is what will fetch maximum value to your analytical needs. Ranging right from flexibility, customization to legal coverage, web extraction services score above web extraction product and among the web extraction service provider fraternity, botscraper is definitely the preferred choice.


Source: http://www.botscraper.com/blog/Data-Extraction-Product-vs-Web-Scraping-Service-which-is-best-

Web Data Extraction Services Derive Data from Huge Sources of Information

Web Data Extraction Services Derive Data from Huge Sources of Information

Statistics show that the number of websites exceeded 1 billion and will exceed this figure by 2016. Even considering that only 25% are active the number is staggering. In this there are thousands of categories dedicated to virtually all subjects under the Sun. For people who want information the internet is a boon because they can get the latest data and detailed information on the topic of their interest. Anyone who does not know how complex the web is would think that a simple Google search is all they need to get their hands on information. It is only when they actually do it that they realize how frustrating it is to actually get to sites that contain genuine information and not promotional materials.

Out there people have access to not just gigabytes of data but terabytes out of which data that serves their purpose may only be in megabytes but to get to this it requires accessing not one but thousands of websites and extracting data. The task is easy for web data extraction services since keywords and a few other parameters and the software do they use automated web data extraction software. The operator simply inputs filters, defines es the rest. The software will carry out automatic searches based on inputs and will access thousands of sites and voluminous amounts of data. From this huge mountain of data it extracts only the specific bits of information required by the end user. The rest is discarded.

How is this advantageous to the end user?

In the normal course the end user if left to extract web data on his own would not have the time or patience to visit hundreds or thousands of websites. It would take more than a couple of months. Even assuming he did visit websites, he would be up against blocks put up by the administrators that would prevent him from accessing or downloading the data. Third, even if he did manage to obtain information, he would have to refine it-a painstaking and time consuming task. All these headaches are short-circuited by the use of web data extraction software. He sits back, carries on with his usual work and the information he seeks is delivered to him by the web extraction service. The extraction tool they use accesses thousands of sites, even password protected sites and sites with automatic blocks against repeated attempts. Since it is automated it can access one website after another in quick succession and download data in the multi-threaded mode. It will run unattended for hours and days, all the while sifting through terabytes of data and exporting refined data into a predefined format. An end user gets more meaningful data he can work on immediately and be even more productive.

If web data extraction services are popular and accepted it is only because they deliver meaningful data. They can only do this if they have the tools to access the huge number of websites, ferret out the data from the voluminous mass and present it all in a usable format, all of which is easy when they use the extractor tool.

Source:http://www.sooperarticles.com/technology-articles/software-articles/web-data-extraction-services-derive-data-huge-sources-information-1417142.html