What is Web Scraping and What is it Used For? | Definition and Examples EXPLAINED

hello we're Parsa so you want to know what web scraping is and how it's used okay let's break it all down some websites can contain a very large amount of invaluable data stock prices product details sports stats you name it if you wanted to access this information you either have to use whatever format the website uses or copy and paste the information manually into a new document this can be pretty tedious when you want to extract a lot of information from a website here's where web scraping can help so what is web scraping web scraping simply refers to the extraction of data from a website this information is collected and then export into a format that is more useful to the user for example you can use web scraping to export a list of product names and prices from Amazon onto an Excel spreadsheet while though web scraping can be done manually in most cases software tools that run on your computer are preferred when scraping as they can be less expensive and work at a faster rate but in most cases web scraping is not a simple task nowadays websites come in many shapes and forms and as a result web scrapers can vary in functionality and features so how do web scrapers work and tackle complex sites first a web scraper will be given one or more URLs to load before scraping the scraper then loads the entire HTML code for the page in question more advanced scrapers will render the entire website including CSS and JavaScript elements then the scraper will either extract all the data on the page or specific data selected by the user before the project is run ideally the user will go through the process of selecting the specific data they want from the page for example you might want to scrape an Amazon product page for prices and models but are not necessarily interested in product reviews lastly the web scraper will output the data that has been collected into a format that is more useful to the user most web scrapers will output data to a CSV or Excel spreadsheet while more advanced scrapers will support other formats such as JSON which can then be used for an API web scrapers can also come in many different forms with very different features on a case-by-case basis for example web scrapers can come as a browser extension or more powerful desktop application that is downloaded to your computer web scrapers can also scrape sites locally from your computer using your computer resources and your internet connection or work on the cloud without using your computer resources or your internet connection feeling adventurous just like how anyone could build a website you can also build your own web scraper if you want to after some coding of course by this point you can probably think of several different ways in which web scrapers can be used a few uses include scraping stock prices to make better investing decisions scraping data from Yellow Pages to generate leads scraping data from a store locator to create a list of business locations scraping product data from sites like Amazon or Ebay for competitor analysis or scraping sports stats for betting or fantasy leagues the list of things you can do with web scraping is almost endless after all it's all about what you can do with the data you've collected and how valuable you can make it so now that you know the basics of web scraping you're probably wondering what is the best web scraper for you the obvious answer is that it depends it's way easier to know which web scraper is best for you the more you know about your web scraping needs however we think you should definitely give parse up a chance not only can it be downloaded for free but it comes with an incredibly powerful suite of features which we reviewed in this video this includes a friendly UI cloud-based scraping awesome customer support and more check us out at par subcon and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos on web scraping data and the Internet [Music]

Channel: ParseHub

Views: 131,404

Rating: 4.9244022 out of 5

Keywords: web scraping, web scraper, what is web scraping, what are web scrapers used for?, how do web scrapers work

Id: Ct8Gxo8StBU

Length: 3min 39sec (219 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2019