What is web scraping?
Posted: Sun Jan 12, 2025 4:08 am
If you use the internet, you may have already noticed that the search engines used use indexing robots to find the terms you are looking for. These indexing robots explore the different online sites to find keywords and categorize them in association. Web scraping is one of the indexing techniques found with these search engines. But what exactly is this technique? What are its advantages? And how can web scraping be used in marketing? We explain everything to you.
Web scraping is an gcash database English term composed of scraping which means to scrape/scrape and web. It means extracting data from websites to analyze and use them. The technique therefore aims to collect information of a very different nature and use it, again, for different reasons. It can involve collecting contact details such as email addresses, telephone numbers or even keywords. The information collected is then gathered in databases.
To simplify, it is a kind of automatic copy/paste which allows you to obtain different information and save it.
This technique can be manual or automatic. Manual web scraping involves manually copying and inserting information and data. This is an ideal method if you want to harvest computer data sporadically. It is indeed time-consuming and requires a lot of work.
Automatic web scraping uses software (or an algorithm) that will explore websites in order to find and extract information. There are then three methods to scrape a site.
Parsers convert text into a new structure. They read the document and record the information. They can also be robots, software that performs specific and automated tasks. They analyze sites and collect data. Another analyzer: texts. If you master the use of Command Line, you can crawl the web to obtain certain terms. This technique is simple, but requires a lot of work.
This tool includes different features. It allows you to collect contact data. It can also be used to obtain specific information. In the work field, web scraping allows you to obtain advantages, such as, for example, consulting all the products of a competitor company and comparing them with your own products. For financial data, it will be possible to collect information and then analyze and process it after transferring it to a specific table.
Among the search engines that regularly use web scraping, we can cite Google.
Is data scraping legal?
One may wonder if web scraping is a legal process. And the answer will then be nuanced, because, in fact, this technique is not always legal. For it to be, scrapers must first respect the copyright of the sites analyzed.
It is therefore legal when the extracted data is freely accessible on the web. To be sure to remain legal, you will have to respect specific rules. It will therefore be necessary to respect copyright. If the data is protected, it cannot be published elsewhere. Web scraping will not be legal if the website operators have installed a means that prevents this technique. Another reason why web scraping may not be legal: when the use of data is linked to a user connection or a user agreement, scraping will be illegal. It is also prohibited if the general conditions of use, disclaimers or advertisements are hidden via the web scraping technique used.
Likewise, if this technique is used abusively and for destructive or illegal purposes, it will not be possible to use it for sending spam.
Web scraping is an gcash database English term composed of scraping which means to scrape/scrape and web. It means extracting data from websites to analyze and use them. The technique therefore aims to collect information of a very different nature and use it, again, for different reasons. It can involve collecting contact details such as email addresses, telephone numbers or even keywords. The information collected is then gathered in databases.
To simplify, it is a kind of automatic copy/paste which allows you to obtain different information and save it.
This technique can be manual or automatic. Manual web scraping involves manually copying and inserting information and data. This is an ideal method if you want to harvest computer data sporadically. It is indeed time-consuming and requires a lot of work.
Automatic web scraping uses software (or an algorithm) that will explore websites in order to find and extract information. There are then three methods to scrape a site.
Parsers convert text into a new structure. They read the document and record the information. They can also be robots, software that performs specific and automated tasks. They analyze sites and collect data. Another analyzer: texts. If you master the use of Command Line, you can crawl the web to obtain certain terms. This technique is simple, but requires a lot of work.
This tool includes different features. It allows you to collect contact data. It can also be used to obtain specific information. In the work field, web scraping allows you to obtain advantages, such as, for example, consulting all the products of a competitor company and comparing them with your own products. For financial data, it will be possible to collect information and then analyze and process it after transferring it to a specific table.
Among the search engines that regularly use web scraping, we can cite Google.
Is data scraping legal?
One may wonder if web scraping is a legal process. And the answer will then be nuanced, because, in fact, this technique is not always legal. For it to be, scrapers must first respect the copyright of the sites analyzed.
It is therefore legal when the extracted data is freely accessible on the web. To be sure to remain legal, you will have to respect specific rules. It will therefore be necessary to respect copyright. If the data is protected, it cannot be published elsewhere. Web scraping will not be legal if the website operators have installed a means that prevents this technique. Another reason why web scraping may not be legal: when the use of data is linked to a user connection or a user agreement, scraping will be illegal. It is also prohibited if the general conditions of use, disclaimers or advertisements are hidden via the web scraping technique used.
Likewise, if this technique is used abusively and for destructive or illegal purposes, it will not be possible to use it for sending spam.