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How to Create a Web Scraper with Python, PHP, C++, and Node.js

Web-scraper is a general name for a piece of software used for websites’ data extraction and analysis. Web-scrapers can be implemented as browser extensions, desktop programs, or cloud solutions. The range of their applications is as wide as all human activity on the Internet. A custom web-scraper is a web program that collects some specifically chosen data from a chosen website, organizes it, and saves it in a readable for people format, so it could be used by the user manually. It consists of the analyzed website’s HTML, the web scraper’s soft itself (it can be implemented via different platforms), and a database for the scraped data.

Web-scraper software uses HTTP or accesses sites directly via web-browsers. So what do web-scrapers do? Basically, they do the same work a human user can do manually, but faster and more effectively. Web-scraping involves fetching, crawling, parsing and storing.
 

Fetching
 

Fetching is a process similar to what human users do, when they simply download, watch and scroll a web page. Web-scrapes, however, fetch automatically via HTML, this process is quite fast and furious.
 

Crawling
 

Web-crawling is a process of searching for some particular information from a chosen website or web-sites. Web-crawling is used by numerous websites for copying data and easing the web search. To do crawling you need a web-crawler or a web-spider. A crawler starts with seeds – special URLs list. As the crawler visits these URLs, it identifies all the web pages’ hyperlinks and includes them in the list of the URLs to visit. A web-crawler is a special Internet bot, it has many purposes and is an essential part of a web-scraper.
 

Parsing
 

Once, your web-scraper has approached the website’s data it has to match and compare it either with some preset data or with previously gathered information in order to stay updated. Parsing is probably the most important stage of scraping.
 

Storing
 

After your scraper has collected all the data it needs to organize and store it in the way, allowing a human user to read the data manually. This can be done in many different ways. Some web-scrapers create files with information on your device, while others keep all the data on the servers.

The amount of information to parse is countless just like the list of human activities. 
 

Prices
 

Comparing prices and purchasing huge numbers of items cheaper and selling them for a higher price is a simple, yet effective way to exploit web-scraping in e-commerce. Even several cents of price difference make such transactions really profitable if you’re purchasing and selling millions of items. 
 

Bets
 

Betting analysis is also an interesting way to use web-scraping. Web-scrapers are able to analyze betting services, giving you profit if you bet much enough.  
 

Market’s demand and offer
 

By analyzing customers’ feedback web-scrapers can find gaps in the market’s offer, which you can fill with your own business ideas. For example, you analyze the biggest websites selling kitchenware. The web-scraper’s analysis shows that the market doesn’t offer enough forks. You start selling forks and voila – your business gets successful. 
 

News
 

Why would you parse news? For millions of reasons actually. You may be a news agency, trying to figure out which articles are the most popular, or a politician, who wants to know what topics he should pay special attention to. 
 

Older web-sites
 

Most web-scrapers are used to parse someone else’s websites, but you can also use them to parse…your own website. Why would you do that? Well, if you want to update your site or create a new one instead of your outdated web page you have to transfer all the data from an older site to a newer one. Thereby you ought to know that web-scrapers allow you to copy all the relevant information from the older web page and put it to a new one with a different design and architecture.

Do you want to build a web-scraper? If you are making any kind of software you always start with choosing the programming language. Here are the programming languages you can choose from if you want to create a web-scraper:
 

C++
 

C++ is not just one of the basic programming languages to learn, it also provides a great basement to build your scraper. Although this language isn’t really suitable for building a web-crawler. A web-scraper development company won’t be using it, yet it is used by single developers and amateur programmers.
 

Node.js
 

It is a great web platform for web scraping and data crawling. Based on JavaScript, Node.js is mostly used for web-pages indexing and can simultaneously support both distributed crawling and data scraping. Nevertheless, this language is only suitable for some basic web-scraping projects and doesn’t cope well with complex large-scale tasks.
 

PHP
 

PHP is known to be one of the best and most efficient web software development languages. Unlike Node.js and C++, PHP perfectly suits developers, who want to create advanced scrapers and crawlers. PHP developers may count on a great tool while working: Gouette. Gouette is a great open-source library suitable for developing web scrapers. This platform deals with web-crawling, making it essential when creating a complex scraper.
 

Python
 

Python is probably the most efficient and comfortable language to build a web-scraper. Like PHP it provides you with a great set of tools to make the most advanced scraping and crawling software. Such great frameworks like Scrapy and BeautifulSoup are available. Both are probably the best and most used libraries for web-scrapers. Scrapy is one of the most well-known scraping frameworks today and offers many useful tools for the most advanced projects, while BeautifulSoup is simpler in use and works out for less demanding projects.

Counteraction
 

While web-scrapers are developing rapidly, the targeted websites are constantly improving their own countermeasures. You can call it a web-arms race! Usually, web-scraper development teams do a great job just like their counterparts. This ongoing web-developing doesn’t let any side rest on their laurels and being updated all the time is totally one of the most important challenges of web-scraping. 
 

Diversity
 

Web-sites may differ, so do the approaches of scraping them. What does it mean in practice? Well, due to this you’ll have to develop personal unique scrapers for every single side separately. This also doesn’t make web-scraper developers’ tasks easier, though it ensures they will always have work of this kind. Some huge commercial companies’ websites, of course, have better protection than smaller ones. Targeted websites also may be designed in different ways, using varied tools and technologies. Due to this, most web-scraper development companies focus on single-site web-scrapers. A software that can scrap several websites simultaneously will cost significantly more for the developers ergo for clients.
 

Variability
 

Even if you focus your software on one website it doesn’t mean you can have it forever. It doesn’t mean that the website you regularly scrap is actively developing anti-scraping countermeasures against your particular scraper. Perhaps, the website just updates generally or moves to another e-address. This may cause inconveniences anyway.
 

Dynamic web-sites
 

The way dynamic websites are built is itself a great obstacle for web-scraping. The inability to access the demanded data via HTML will force you to develop more complicated scrapers and extend your project’s timing and budget.

Since web-scrapers differ significantly, costs for their development will also vary and will highly depend on the number of websites you want to scrap as far as on the websites’ bot-protection protocols. For a single site web-scraper the project may consume as much as 2,000-10, 000$; in case if you want to simultaneously parse several websites and to get a deep, relevant analysis of their data, you will have to spend 5,000-200,000$, depending on the number and quality of the web-sites being scraped, their anti-scraping protection and the amount of the data you want to obtain. By smartly choosing the platform for your scraper you can save some money. Also if you are short on budget you can start your scraping project as an MVP, dealing with lesser numbers of goods and customers. You will thus gain additional resources for expanding your web-scraper to a new scale.

Importance
 

Businesses, relying on web-scraping work better, faster, and with higher effectiveness. Despite the costs of web-scrapers, they prove to be paid off. Advanced systems designed for trading can pay themselves off after the very first use. A budget’s use efficiency, however, highly depends on the exact software and its purpose. 
 

Our experience and advice
 

Sapient Pro has tremendous experience in web-scrapers development, we have effectively designed many kinds of web-scrapers for commercial needs. Our team is constantly seeking new web-scraping technologies and improving them on our own. We have already developed scrapers powerful enough to parse 25 million different goods every 36 hours, checking changes in both text and media descriptions of the products. Our systems are able to simultaneously purchase high-demand goods within seconds for thousands of users. We deeply analyze all the software the market can offer, our developers are doing their best to find the weaknesses in existing systems in order not to have them in our own samples. SapientPro also keeps checking the newest anti-scraping protective measures on the biggest commercial websites, so rest assured: any scraper you order will be a piece of cutting-edge software, capable of breaking through any defensive lines! Today SapientPro can deal with ANY kind of anti-scraping protection, overcoming captcha and other web-Maginot lines, working with third-party services for more effective parsing.
 

The final word
 

As a web-developing company, we can provide any software and services, including all the types of web-scrapers for any existing platforms. However, here’s our professional piece of advice regarding commercial web-scraping: if you need an advanced web-scraper, cloud solutions are the best. We will gladly create an up-to-date piece of software for you, additionally providing all the necessary web-scraper development services! The parsed data will be maintained and processed on our servers, while you will be getting precisely what you need – relevant information. So don’t hesitate! Contact us and we will discuss your project together!