Web scraping is a commonly used software package to extract data from online websites rapidly and efficiently. Scrape websites provide numerous free scraper tools to perform data extraction. No matter which scrape web item performs data mining, the only technique applied is a Hypertext transfer protocol that allows a person to access the web automatically.
Moreover, lots of scrape webpages help businesses automatically extract and save the data from a particular website to a local computer system. Moving on, proxy scarping makes data crawling more quickly, as it scrapes the website anonymously. Similar to all other techniques, web scraping has also got its advantages and disadvantages. Let us take a look at them one by one.
Advantages of Web Scraping
Some of the primary yet significant benefits that have made this technique so popular among different communities and industries are as follows;
Automation
The first and foremost advantage of data scraping tools is that it has made retrieval of data from various websites a matter of a few clicks. Before this technique, data was still extracted, but it was a tiresome and lengthy process. It has helped extract the data in less time, and an extensive volume of data can be retrieved and processed within no time.
1. Data Management Accuracy
With the introduction of web scraping, the accuracy of data extraction was also introduced. As we all know, human error is always a factor when performing a task manually, leading to more significant issues in later stages. Especially in finance industries where sales and cost prices are concerned, accuracy plays a vital role, and here, this technique comes in handy. Therefore, web crawling allows not only automated and comfortable but also accurate data mining.
2. Economical
Manual data extraction is an expensive task to perform as it requires a considerable workforce and massive budgets. Still, just like many other activities, web scraping has resolved this issue as well. Data mining is cheaper than ever before because it has to be collected and analyzed back from the main websites for the internet to function regularly.
3. Easy Implementation
Web scraping with proper deployment of the scraping mechanism requires one-time investment and retrieves massive data from not the entire domain.
4. Management of Data
Web scraping allows a person to download and manage data onto his local computer in spreadsheets or databases, which cannot be done on configured HTML websites. Moreover, this technique has removed the idea of copy and pasting, as it engulfs most of the time that can be utilized in many other creative things.
5. Low Maintenance and Speed
Web scraping is a budget-friendly technique as it requires significantly less or no maintenance over a long period that saves the maintenance cost. Apart from this, it helps scrape the data in a few hours that used to be done manually in days or weeks.
Disadvantages of Web Scraping
Some of the disadvantages of web scraping are as follows;
1. Difficulty in Analyzing
Although web scraping is a blessing for experts and programmers, people who are not so good in programming can face difficulties in analyzing and performing it. However, it is not a significant issue and can be resolved with a little brainstorming.
2. Data Analysis
When data is scraped from the website, it needs to be read and understood correctly to process, which can be a time taking and energy-consuming process.
3. Data Analysis
Crawling of large websites requires enormous amounts of requests sent by the same IP address, and sometimes, websites have the policy of banning the IP addresses. It is one of the major problems but is solved by proxy scrapers.
Conclusion
With all its pros and cons, web scraping is a way forward and has advanced technology. It is beneficial for people of all walks of life and is also completely legal.
