Web scraping has become a very common practice for simple internet users and businesses. The web gives us access to lifetimes’ worth of information, which is simply impossible for our brains to comprehend. Fortunately, just like we can bend technology to accumulate oceans of data, we can also use superhuman processing power to make extremely precise predictions and discoveries.
Public data is all around us, and the companies that learn to extract and systematize valuable information will always stay one step ahead of the competition. Because of it, web scraping is being taught as a valuable skill in IT colleges and universities. When done correctly, data collection can be used in many different ways. Learning the basics of web scraping lets us explore these possibilities and slowly uncover the real power of data analytics.
In this article, we will discuss the benefits of web scraping and the necessary tools that help us sustain big data collection tasks. For example, we will need a Chinese or an Indian proxy to target geo-blocked websites in these countries. Smartproxy is one of the best providers with proxy server locations all around the world with versatile deals for all scraping needs. For the time being, let’s focus on the importance of public data collection.
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Why should you learn web scraping?
Although web scraping might seem like a complicated procedure for uneducated internet users, in recent years it has become a common practice from which anyone can benefit. With a little bit of technical knowledge, you can start extracting data from any website. There is no better practice than playing around with the most popular, scrape-friendly websites. Reverse engineering is a great approach that will help you understand the power of data extraction at a much greater magnitude.
Free and open-source web scrapers like Scrapy are great tools for beginner scraping enthusiasts. When paired with residential proxies, even small data extraction tasks are much safer and smoother. With a proxy server, you have all the freedom you like: you can hide your identity and try extracting data from websites that do not like to be scraped or get access to an Indian website with the help of an Indian proxy. Once you accumulate enough knowledge, you will be able to benefit from your scraping operations: finding the best deals on travel tickets, hotels, and even real estate. Look at these future projects as your goalposts, and you will learn everything you need about web scraping in no time!
How web scraping helps today’s businesses
Although web scraping can be very beneficial for individual purposes, today’s businesses depend on web scraping to survive and thrive in the digital world. Companies that focus on data extraction will always make better, more accurate decisions based on collected knowledge.
Web scraping can be used to create and boost digital marketing campaigns. Influencer marketing is a popular strategy that focuses on discovering content creators and advertising the product or service on their platform. Web scraping allows us to find the best influencers to grow our brand based on customizable standards. However, if you plan to scrape popular social media websites, make sure to use a residential proxy. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other platforms do not like being scraped and impose harsh restrictions to filter out scraping bot behavior. Choose a proxy according to the location that you need to unlock. Trying to access sites in India? We recommend using an Indian proxy to hide your real IP address and continue research for your digital marketing campaign. Of course, to speed things up, you can use multiple scraping bots with different residential proxy IPs.
Price intelligence and competitor monitoring are usually the main goals of business scraping. Keeping a watchful eye on other companies can help you make constant adjustments to outmaneuver them. However, because everyone is aware of public data scraping, we must use residential proxies to protect the main IP address. The struggle for data aggregation is present in every business environment. For example, if you need to scrape your competitors in India, we recommend doing it through an Indian proxy IP. When you cycle different addresses while running your web scrapers, other companies won’t be able to trace you back. This way, constantly active web scrapers will help you track consumer response to price changes and competitor aggressiveness.
Scrape the web with residential proxies
As we already mentioned, proxy servers are an essential part of a serious scraping task. Not only do they grant us anonymity, but a residential proxy from a legitimate proxy provider will help you bypass barriers and put your scraping bots for some fast-paced work.
If you ever encounter a website that is not available in your country, you will still have the freedom to choose your location from a huge proxy IP pool. Residential proxies are the best tools for accessing and collecting public data. Always use them with your web scrapers, and you will have nothing to worry about.
