Five Tips For Successful Web Scraping

Some people, especially those new to scraping, don't know the basic concepts and tools. We will give five tips that will reduce the chance of receiving blocks and improve performance.

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What is web scraping?

Web scraping is the process of collecting, extracting, and storing data from websites or offline databases. The scraped data is usually downloaded straight to the user's computer or server. Scraping can also take place in offline databases, which is then called data scraping.

Technically, if you copy web page elements and paste them on your hard drive with a mouse click, it's also web scraping. However, such a method is inefficient, and you wouldn't be able to collect large amounts of data.

Web scraping usually refers to automatic data gathering using bots - software designed specifically for this task. A bot loads the webpage, extracts the data, and converts it to a convenient format, usually CSV, HTML or JSON.

Web scraping shouldn't be confused with crawling, which visits websites and only indexes them. They are different processes, albeit crawling can be a prerequisite for successful scraping.

If you need a more extensive survey of what is web scraping and how it works, visit this website. Here we will move to five tips for ensuring your success while web scraping.

Define your goal

As powerful as web scraping is, aimlessly gathering random data isn't a good strategy. You need to have a specific goal in mind to achieve it within your web scraping project. Luckily, there are plenty of use cases to guide you.

Investigating competition is an essential part of any business. Customer count, prices, ad campaigns, and everything else is available online to be gathered with web scraping tools. Such data will allow you to make better decisions in the long run.

Brand protection is a different but equally essential task. Malicious actors might try to use your name while selling counterfeits, infringing your copyright, spreading disinformation and more. Any time wasted will worsen the damage. Scrape data quickly to proceed with legal action.

Equity research is done by all investors aiming to make informed decisions. These days, most information about companies is online and publicly available. But before you can analyze it, you need to collect it, making web scraping an irreplaceable method.

Choose a good web scraper

A perfect web scraper is one that you make yourself and tweak for a specific purpose. Of course, you need to be a master programmer to achieve it, and so a simpler option is to buy one.

Not all of them are ready to use from the get-go. Most still require some technical knowledge. If you aren't so tech-savvy, we recommend looking for a scraper that would have a convenient interface with the ability to choose what data you want to scrape visually.

Such a method will allow you to avoid anything related to coding. However, some of the more accessible scrapers are limited in application. So, check what web page designs are supported. Infinite scrolling pages, for example, are not supported by all tools.

Octoparse is a leading example of an easy-to-use scraper that can support all web page designs. It requires no coding knowledge as the data to scrape is selected from the fully loaded page. The only drawback is the price, so if it is too expensive for you, check out other alternatives, such as scrape.do, Scrapy or ParseHub.

Randomize scraping intervals

Even if the data you are collecting is publicly available, the website's server might not like it. Scrapers can potentially flood websites with data requests until they crash for everyone. Therefore, websites monitor bots and ban their IPs if they seem suspicious.

Even the best scraper will not avoid bans without proper instructions. It's essential to spread your requests and not send a new one every second. You should randomize delays between requests and schedule scraping sessions at different times.

Precise timeframes for scraping depend on the website's server performance, so you need to track the speed of your scraper. Luckily, most scraping tools, like the previously mentioned Octoparse, will allow you to randomize web scraping intervals and even provide suggestions.

Consider using CAPTCHA solver

Even if you are extremely careful while scraping, it's only a matter of time before you will face CAPTCHAs - Completely Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart. Websites use them to weed out bots from other visitors.

If the user cannot solve a CAPTCHA, it's a bot and could be banned. Most sites with valuable information, such as social media platforms or online news outlets, use CAPTCHAs often. One obvious way to deal with this issue is to use CAPTCHA solving services, such as 2Captcha.

However, a CAPTCHA solver can only be a supplementary tool that increases your chances of acquiring data. There are other metrics websites use to determine whether you use a bot and if there is even one CAPTCHA solved incorrectly, your IP might be banned. You need multiple IP addresses to be successful in web scraping.

Use proxies

Proxies are intermediary servers that stand between your scraper bot and the target server. Web scraping is impossible without proxies because once the server bans your IP address, you won't be able to access its data. With a proxy service, you can hide your original IP address and show only that of a proxy.

It is beneficial to use multiple proxies and rotate the IP addresses for a set period of time. That way, the website won't be quick enough to track your scraper's requests and will assume its different users. Additionally, the IP addresses can originate from different locations, so geo-restrictions won't be a problem.

Conclusion

All the tips mentioned here will lead you in the right direction, but some trial and error will be needed for success. So, here is a bonus tip: start practicing now and don't stop til you gather what you need.

Lesley Montoya

Update 27 October 2022