Web scraping pros and cons

What you should consider before starting web scraper development

Web scraping, also known as web data extraction or web harvesting, is the process of extracting data from websites. It typically involves making HTTP requests to a website’s server, parsing the HTML content of the web pages, and extracting the desired data (Structured data set; CSV, JSON, or a relational database). This data can then be saved, analyzed, or processed further according to the needs of the user.

Advantages of web scraping

1. Data accessibility: Web scraping allows you to access a large amount of data from the internet, which can be used for various purposes, such as market research, sentiment analysis, or data analysis.
2. Automation: Web scraping can be automated, which saves time and effort compared to manually collecting data from websites.
3. Cost-effective: Web scraping is an inexpensive method for obtaining data, as there are many free or affordable tools and libraries available for web scraping.
4. Customizable: Web scraping tools can be tailored to your specific needs, allowing you to extract the exact data you require from different websites.
5. Competitive analysis: By scraping data from your competitor’s websites, you can gain insights into their strategies, product offerings, and pricing, which can help inform your own business decisions.