Web Scraping — Why?

The Power of Data: Why Web Scraping Matters

Published in

Geek Culture

7 min readMar 3, 2023

In simple words, web scraping is a technique that is used to extract data from websites. But, is this all?
Don’t you ever wonder
1. Why is it even done?
2. Why some businesses invest in this?
3. How profitable can it be?

In this article we are going to learn about all this. Yeah, I know I was writing about dynamic web scraping and have not yet written a lot about it. But, I thought if people read about web scraping and like it, they should know some basics about it like its reality, its importance, and how businesses profit from web scraping?

By the end of this article, you’ll have a better understanding of why web scraping is an essential tool for businesses and researchers, and how it can help you achieve your data-related goals. So, let’s dive in!

** I’ll make sure that lengthy topics be covered in separate article for you to be at easy and stay organized in your life!

So, what is this, the Web Scraping?

Web scraping is the process of extracting data from websites automatically using software tools or, some times, just simple script 🤔. Well, we all know that. By using web scraping tools, it’s possible to collect data from multiple sources quickly and efficiently, which can provide valuable insights for a range of applications. If you have some introduction with Scrapy then you must be aware that multiple pages can be scraped easily. No no, I’m not branding here, just telling.

Web scraping can include anything from product information and pricing to customer reviews and social media mentions. The extracted data can then be saved to a file or database, where it can be analyzed and used for a range of purposes.

I think, it’s enough to clear what web scraping is 🙃.

The Benefits of Web Scraping for Businesses

It’s time to get serious.

Automated data collection: Web scraping allows businesses to automate the process of collecting data from multiple sources, saving time and reducing the risk of errors that can occur with manual data entry.
Cost savings: With web scraping, businesses can gather data without the need for expensive third-party services or custom-built solutions, which can be costly and time-consuming to develop.
Competitive insights: By collecting data on their competitors, businesses can gain valuable insights into their strategies, pricing, and market positioning. This can help businesses identify areas where they can improve and develop more effective marketing strategies.
Customer insights: Web scraping can provide businesses with detailed information on their customers’ behavior, preferences, and needs. By analyzing this data, businesses can develop more effective marketing campaigns and better understand how to meet their customers’ needs.
Industry trends: By monitoring industry news and trends through web scraping, businesses can stay up-to-date on the latest developments and adjust their strategies accordingly. This can help businesses stay ahead of their competitors and identify new opportunities for growth.
Data-driven decision-making: By gathering and analyzing data through web scraping, businesses can make more informed, data-driven decisions. This can help them optimize their operations, identify new opportunities for growth, and improve their overall performance.

Hope this was digestible. Let me know with your comments 😉.

How Web Scraping Saves Time and Money

It’s just that simple. Web scraping is done with automated software or script. So, no hiring for data collection agents, no hiring for data entry operators, no need to pay them for their days of work. Businesses hire developers and they less number of developers do the work of greater number of data collectors. The same task is done in fewer days or hours or, may be, minutes.

Is it Legal 🤔?

To be honest, it’s not always legal. Let me be brief on it.

Some websites do not allow scraping their data at all and we observe this restriction when we face CAPTCHA. So, when we try to scrap them 🤫. Though they display some of their data publicly, they do not allow scraping. Websites have a ‘robots.txt’ file enlisting the access permissions for bots or script.

I’ll write about this in detail. To keep yourself aware of everything, you’ll have to stay in touch with me. So, kindly consider to “Follow” me 😎.

We’ll talk about “Web Scraping Ethics and Legality” and “Web Scraping Tools and Techniques” in their own articles.

Real-World Applications of Web Scraping

Web scraping has become an essential tool for businesses and individuals alike, allowing them to collect valuable data from the web quickly and efficiently. But what are some real-world applications of web scraping? Let’s take a look.

E-commerce and price monitoring: One of the most common applications of web scraping is in the e-commerce industry, where businesses use it to monitor prices and product information from their competitors. By collecting this data, businesses can adjust their pricing strategies and stay ahead of the competition.
Market research: Web scraping can be used to collect data on consumer trends, industry news, and other market research information. This data can be analyzed to identify new opportunities and make informed business decisions.
Lead generation: Businesses can use web scraping to collect contact information from potential customers, including email addresses and phone numbers. This can help businesses generate leads for their sales teams and grow their customer base.
Social media monitoring: Web scraping can be used to monitor social media platforms for mentions of a brand or product. This can help businesses identify customer sentiment, monitor their reputation, and stay ahead of potential PR crises.
Job listings and recruitment: Web scraping can be used to collect job listings from various websites, making it easier for recruiters to find and reach out to potential candidates. It can also be used to collect information on competitors’ job postings and hiring strategies.
Scientific research: Web scraping can be used in scientific research to collect data on various topics, including weather patterns, stock market trends, and medical research. This data can be analyzed to identify patterns and make informed decisions.

Overall, web scraping has numerous real-world applications across various industries, making it a valuable tool for businesses and individuals alike. By using web scraping, businesses can save time and resources while gaining valuable insights into their industry and customers.

Wow, ChatGPT is awesome at writing 😁, I used it only under this heading.

Web Scraping Best Practices 😑

Web scraping can be a powerful tool for collecting data, but it’s important to follow best practices to ensure that you’re doing it legally, ethically, and effectively. Here are some best practices to keep in mind when conducting web scraping:

Respect the website’s terms of service: Before scraping a website, make sure you read and understand their terms of service. Some websites explicitly prohibit scraping or require permission before doing so.
Use proper attribution: If you’re using scraped data in a public-facing project, make sure to properly attribute the data to its source. This can include providing a link back to the original website or citing the source in a footnote.
Avoid excessive scraping: Don’t scrape a website more frequently than necessary, as this can strain the website’s resources and potentially lead to a denial of service attack. Be respectful of the website’s bandwidth and processing power.
Use ethical scraping techniques: Avoid scraping private or personal data, and don’t scrape websites that are protected by authentication or security measures. Stick to public-facing data that is freely available to all users.
Be mindful of copyright and intellectual property laws: Be careful not to scrape content that is copyrighted or protected by intellectual property laws, such as images or text. Respect the creator’s rights and only use content that is available under a permissive license.

By following these best practices, you can ensure that your web scraping efforts are legal, ethical, and effective. Always remember to approach web scraping with respect for the websites and data sources you are using, and to use the data you collect in a responsible and transparent way.

Let’s talk about interesting things.

Getting Started with Web Scraping

If you want to get started with it, look below.

Here’s a simple Python script that demonstrates web scraping by extracting the titles of the latest articles from the front page of the New York Times website:

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

url = 'https://www.nytimes.com'
response = requests.get(url)

soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'html.parser')
articles = soup.find_all('h2')

for article in articles:
    print(article.text)

In this script, we first import the necessary libraries: requests for making HTTP requests to the website and BeautifulSoup for parsing the HTML content.

We then define the URL of the website we want to scrape and make a GET request to that URL using the requests library. The response is stored in the response variable.

Next, we use BeautifulSoup to parse the HTML content of the response and extract all the h2 elements from the page, which typically contain the titles of the latest articles.

Finally, we loop through each h2 element and print out the text content of each one using the text attribute.

This is a very basic example of web scraping and there are many more advanced techniques and considerations to be aware of, such as handling pagination, using headers to avoid being blocked by the website, and respecting the website’s terms of service and copyright restrictions. To keep learning, “Follow” me and “clap” for my articles to keep me motivated.

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