subject: Making The Most Out Of Web Scrapping [print this page] Web scrapping is also known as web harvesting or web data extraction and it is a method with the help of which one can extract information form a website. Over the years most of the websites include fields where the users are asked to enter data or any sorts of information. Once the data has been retrieved the web site owners or developers wish to use the information later or save the same for various actions. Web scrapping is sometimes regarded as web indexing but the former is different from the later in several ways. For an instance the web indexing focuses majorly on structured form of data where as the web scrapping services focuses more on the unstructured data in the websites. The web scrapping allows for retrieval of data in a structured format so that it can be used on a later date.
Web scrapping is also said to be an application that goes through the HTML pages and extracts data from the same. The data or information gathered from the same can be used for either carrying out surveys, analysis or even converting the format. The data analysis can be done on either a spreadsheet or local database. One of the most common changes of format is that from HTML to WML and web scrapping services allows the websites to do the same with minimum efforts. The inclusion of web scrapping helps with web automation to a large extent. In web scrapping the data is automatically collected from the websites and used accordingly. The method uses the already existing methods to implement itself thus reducing the complexities that may have risen due to using new technology.
The innovative idea of web scrapping services is used in several fields in the world of internet services such as monitoring of weather, detecting the changes in website, integration of web data, web mash up and online price comparison. One does not have to compromise with browsing or any other aspects of internet when this service is included. There are several companies that provide with such services. Thus all those who are willing to include the service in their websites, they can take the help of the companies which provide with web scrapping services. However it must be kept in mind that web scrapping might violate the terms and conditions of some websites and thus they must be used very carefully.
