What is a web scraper?

A web scraper is a tool that automatically extracts data from websites. It finds the information you want from web pages and puts it into a format you can use, such as a spreadsheet.
Copy definition

Related terms: Bot traffic | IP address

What is a web scraper?

Web scrapers are computer programs that read websites for you and collect information from them automatically. Instead of showing you a website, like a web browser does, a web scraper reads the code of the website (usually HTML) to look for the specific information you want. Once a web scraper has found the data you want, it copies it for you and saves it in a format that’s easy to use, like a spreadsheet. This is helpful when you need to gather a large amount of data from many different websites.

Web scrapers can collect many kinds of data, including:

  • Product information: Prices, descriptions, reviews, images
  • Contact information: Email addresses, phone numbers, social media links
  • Financial data: Stock prices, market trends, company information
  • News articles: Headlines, summaries, full text
  • Social media data: Posts, comments, user profiles

How does a web scraper work?

Web scraping usually involves these steps:

  1. Get the webpage: The scraper gets the HTML code of the web page
  2. Read the HTML: The scraper reads the HTML code to find where the data is located
  3. Take out the data: The scraper extracts the data
  4. Save the data: The scraper saves the data in a format you can use, like a spreadsheet

Fetching the webpage

The first step involves retrieving the underlying HTML code of the web page you want to scrape. The web scraper does this by sending a request to the website's server, similar to how your web browser requests a page when you type in a URL. The server responds by sending the HTML content of the page to the scraper.

Parsing the HTML

Once the scraper has the HTML code, it needs to make sense of it. This is where parsing comes in. Parsing involves analyzing the HTML structure to identify the different elements and their relationships. The scraper might look for specific HTML tags, attributes, or CSS classes that indicate the presence of the data you're interested in.

Extracting the data

After identifying the relevant parts of the HTML code, the scraper extracts the desired data. This could involve grabbing text content from within specific tags, extracting URLs from hyperlinks, or collecting data from tables and lists.

Storing the data

Finally, the extracted data needs to be stored in a structured format for later use. This could involve saving the data to a CSV file (like a spreadsheet), a JSON file (a common format for data exchange), or a database. This allows you to easily access, analyze, and use the data for your specific needs.

Why use a web scraper?

Web scraping offers numerous advantages over manual data collection, making it a valuable tool for businesses and individuals alike:

  • Saves time and effort: Imagine manually copying and pasting data from hundreds or even thousands of web pages. Web scraping automates this process, freeing up your time and resources for other tasks.
  • Improved accuracy: Manual data entry is prone to human error. Web scrapers, on the other hand, can extract data with high accuracy, minimizing the risk of mistakes.
  • Cost-effectiveness: Instead of purchasing expensive datasets from third-party providers, you can use web scraping to gather the data you need at a fraction of the cost.
  • Data customization: Web scraping allows you to extract precisely the data you need, giving you greater control over the information you collect.
  • Competitive advantage: By accessing and analyzing data that may not be readily available, you can gain valuable insights into market trends, competitor activities, and customer behavior, giving you a competitive edge.
  • Up-to-date information: Web scrapers can be scheduled to run regularly, ensuring that you always have access to the latest data.

Types of web scrapers

  • DIY tools: You can use tools to create your own web scrapers.
  • Scraping APIs:
  • Visual scrapers: These tools let you choose the data you want without writing code.

DIY tools

If you're comfortable with coding, you can build your own web scrapers using programming languages like Python and libraries like Beautiful Soup and Scrapy. These tools provide you with the flexibility to create custom scrapers tailored to your specific needs.

  • Beautiful Soup: This Python library simplifies the process of parsing HTML and XML documents, making it easier to extract data from them.
  • Scrapy: A powerful Python framework for building web scrapers. It provides a complete set of tools for fetching web pages, processing them, and storing the extracted data.

Scraping APIs

Scraping APIs provide a simplified and efficient way to extract data from websites. They simplify web scraping by handling proxies, CAPTCHAs, and other challenges. You simply send an API request with the URL you want to scrape, and the scraping API returns the extracted data.

Instead of managing your own scraping infrastructure, you can use an API to send requests to a service that handles the scraping for you. This is particularly useful for handling websites with anti-scraping measures or for large-scale scraping projects.

Visual scrapers

For those who prefer a no-code approach, visual scrapers offer a user-friendly interface for extracting data. These tools often employ a point-and-click approach, allowing you to select the elements you want to extract without writing any code.

Web scrapers and SOAX

Some websites try to stop web scrapers. Proxies can help scrapers work by hiding where they are coming from. Partner your web scraping projects with SOAX to access our huge pools of whitelisted, unique IP addresses. Or take your data extraction to new heights with our scraping APIs.