The free flow of information is one of the biggest achievements of computer technologies. Even by tracking the methods of communication in the past, we can see that improvements in information transmission lead to exponential growth in innovation. When valuable knowledge has ways to reach a bigger part of the population, we get more bright individuals tackling problems and creating solutions for the future.
When everyone has access to more information than any human could ever process in multiple lifetimes, we need technical assistance to collect and analyze data and turn it into knowledge. While it may not bring some new revolutionary discoveries, further progress is driven by precision.
The accuracy of acquired knowledge affects many parts of our modern life. It can be used to make dynamic business decisions and maintain an edge over competitors. Smart devices that bring convenience to our lives feed off of collected data to improve their accuracy and functionality.
Because so many fields depend on a constant stream of information, everyone should have foundational knowledge on data extraction. In this article, we will talk about the technology of web scraping. We will also address data parsing – an essential process that turns extracted code from websites into readable information ready for analysis. If you seek knowledge on data parsing, check out Smartproxy – a popular proxy provider with informative blogs about web scraping on their website. For now, let’s gloss over the basics of web scraping.
Web scraping business opportunities
Many computer science students and tech enthusiasts pursue a career in data analytics. Web scraping and data parsing are valuable skills you can learn from the comfort of your home. With numerous open-source scraping frameworks on Python, there is a ton of educational material that will help you work on your first data extraction tasks.
Working on personal projects is the best way to build a web scraping experience and start implementing tools that assist the process. At some point, you can be good enough to take up freelancing and earn money with simple scraping tasks.
Data parsing can be a boring but necessary process that often becomes a responsibility for beginner programmers. Because the functionality of your parser depends on the website and its changes, it requires constant adjustments, which makes the process very difficult to automate. Learning about web scraping and data parsing will give you sufficient knowledge to start your career as a data analyst.
When it comes to business, most modern companies need to use web scraping to establish a foothold in a digital business environment. Retailers that want to outperform their competitors need scraping to track prices and scan social media for marketing opportunities.
Amazon is a great example of how web scraping affects price sensitivity. The multinational tech giant changes its prices every 10 minutes to present the best deals and leave competitors in the dust. An absurd amount of web scraping and data analysis allows Amazon to utilize extracted information and make the best decisions.
Data aggregation businesses
An all-time high demand for data shaped a new category of businesses that specialized in data aggregation. Let’s discuss the functionality of aggregators that collect information from the web to provide the best deals for their clients.
Travel and booking aggregators simplify the process of finding the best deals for your trips and vacations. By extracting data from the most prominent traveling agencies, they present us with the best options and get a commission from the presented companies.
Real estate websites and even job aggregators follow a similar pattern. An attractive user interface brings convenience to the process that required a lot more effort in the past. Data analysts in smaller countries can seize the opportunity and start nationalized aggregator businesses in their region. Enthusiasts that love a specific product or service can create aggregator websites to assist others in their pursuit. Linking your business ideas with hobbies and interests is the healthiest way to dedicate yourself to your craft and enhance it with technological solutions.
Businesses that sell web data provide valuable assistance to companies that do dedicate resources for data analytics teams but outsource these tasks to reliable partners. Depending on a business model, your need for web data might occur in irregular intervals. Experienced data analysts fulfill these requests and build meaningful connections to create possibilities for further cooperation in the future.
Web scraping assistance
If you ever tried implementing your coding skills to scrape and parse data from a chosen website, the process can feel like a very powerful experience that has many customizable factors to reach the desired information. Wikipedia is a common target for a beginner data analyst for testing the capabilities of scraping frameworks. However, the process of data extraction gets progressively more difficult when you try to collect public information from retailers and other websites that protect their websites from scraping.
Web scrapers send an abnormal amount of data requests to a web server, which makes them easy to spot and recognize. To counteract these limitations, aggregator businesses cooperate with proxy providers. When web scrapers operate behind residential IPs, the receiving party cannot recognize and block the original address. Without proxy servers, companies lose access to websites of interest or end up in honeypots – fake versions of a web page with falsified information. If you are interested in a career in data analytics, we recommend familiarizing yourself with the functionality of proxy servers to protect your data extraction tasks.
