Web Scraping is the process of collecting data from a website - ideally using a programmed bot to automate the process. Scraping is an extremely useful tool for building databases and monitoring competitors. The original iteration of Airbnb came by scraping data on Craigslist to compile a database of people renting out rooms for cash. Tools like ChatGPT, and even Google only exist because of scraping - they have harvested the bulk of the internet in existence and used that to create their services.
Scraping can be performed in a number of different ways depending on what the target site and data is - the main scraping techniques are using simple HTTP requests or using browser automation to mimic a real user. In some cases websites will attempt to block scrapers to prevent potential competitors replicating their databases. Often these obstacles can be circumvented using a complex browser based approach and cycling through proxy networks.
When automating data collection the first step is always to see if there are existing APIs to collect the data without the need for scrapers. If this is not viable, then the next step is to examine the target site and identify the ideal database structure, from here it should be apparent whether HTTP requests or brower automation will be needed.
In some cases, scraping may only need to be performed on an adhoc basis. Normally this would mean cloud computing infrastructure for automation is not required and data processing is done either semi-manually with a pre-written piece of code, or manually. For cases with completely automated scraping, cloud computing is a must and doing a complete data pipeline design is necessary to ensure the ongoing robustness of the data.
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Web scraping is a useful tool to collect data with as little human input as possible, making widescale data collection affordable and scalable.
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