Web Data Extraction Solutions for business Automation

Your business today is driven purely and solely by information. This vital component is carved out from data scraped from relevant sources, cleansed and compiled to form the crux of your enterprise analytics plan. Therefore, following a manual practice for Data Extraction often makes it prone to errors which may be detrimental to the health of your business. Various Web Data Extraction Solutions therefore are made available which help to not only automate Website Data Scraping, but in the process also help in the automation of several business processes.  Let us take a look at some of these business processes:

Execute Data Mining

One of the most obvious usages of the data extractor tools is the function of Web Data Mining, which, if done through manual processes is neither cost-effective nor accurate. Therefore, data extraction solutions provide simple and convenient point and click data extraction interfaces. Moreover, these do not require any additional programming knowledge.

Validate Data accuracy

Web Site Data scraping tools use advanced technology to not only extract data, but also validate their accuracy. This is particularly beneficial for businesses which are involved in background screening and credit reporting activities. Automating the process of validating records helps in increasing turnaround time of the business and ensures accuracy, two of the most crucial criteria for achieving success in their line of business.

Be Price Wise

Organizations are always involved in studying the price dynamics in order to better understand the challenges and areas of opportunities. Your awareness on these helps you to provide more competitive pricing for your products and services. Data extraction solutions are equipped with pricing intelligence technology that helps to collect data on the price that your customer’s expect, their feedback on your products and services and helps you develop insights on products being launched by competitors, their price and availability. This automated process therefore ensures the following things for your business:

•    Increased market – share

•    Enhanced product strategy

•    Informed decisions

Be Compliance Ready

If yours is a financial services firm, you must have often found it to be a major challenge to keep yourself abreast of the compliance and risk factors. Tracking the myriad watch lists, sanction lists and federal and state regulations, available on the web is not only time taking but also an expensive endeavor. The automated Web Data Mining tools ensure that you are now able to do this without impacting the time and money aspect of your business. You are now ensured of compliance with all regulations and sanction lists that are updated on a regular basis. Consequently, your business can also breathe easy with a reduced exposure to financial fraud and identity theft.

Easy Access to Customer Feedback

Your customers are in a way the real owners of your business. They define the way you need to design your product strategy. It is therefore crucial that you need to listen to what they have to say.  The automated Web extraction solutions with their ability to tap into several relevant sources help you to get access to customer sentiments and feedback on your products and services. This is a vital aspect in your organization's growth as it helps you to tackle three important factors:

•    Assimilate positive or negative vibes on your newly launched product or service which might require you to revisit your product strategy

•    Provide immediate attention to issues, if any, with any particular product

Create a trend of aggregated customer sentiments, for analysis

Source: http://scraping-solutions.blogspot.in/2014_07_01_archive.html

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel - The Perils of Online Article Marketing

Many online article marketers so desperately wish to succeed, they want to dump corporate life and work for themselves out of their home. They decide they are going to create an online money making website. Therefore, they look around to see what everyone else is doing, and watch the methods others use to attract online buyers, and then they mimic their marketing, their strategies, and their business models.

Still, if you are copying what other people (less ethical people) are doing in online article marketing, those which are scraping the bottom of the barrel and using false advertising and misrepresentations, then all you are really doing is perpetuating distrust on the Internet. Therefore, you are hurting everyone, including people like me. You must realize that people like me don't appreciate that.

Let me give you a few examples of some of the things going on out there, thing that are being done by people who are ethically challenged. Far too many people write articles and then on their byline they send the Internet surfer or reader of the article to a website that has a squeeze page. The squeeze page has no real information on it, rather it asks for their name and e-mail address.

If the would-be Internet surfer is unwise enough to type in their name and email address they will be spammed by e-mail, receiving various hard-sell marketing pieces. Then, if the Internet Surfer does decide to put in their e-mail address, the website grants them access and then takes them to the page with information about what they are selling, or their online marketing "make you a millionaire" scheme.

Generally, these are five page sales letters, with tons of testimonials of people you've never heard of, and may not actually exist, and all sorts of unsubstantiated earnings claims of how much money you will make if you give them $39.35 by way of PayPal, for this limited offer "Now!" And they will send you an E-book with a strategic plan of how you can duplicate what they are doing. The reality is whatever they are doing is questionable to begin with.

If you are going to do online article marketing please don't scrape the bottom of the barrel, there's just too much competition down there from what I can see. Please consider all this.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Scraping-the-Bottom-of-the-Barrel---The-Perils-of-Online-Article-Marketing&id=2710103

Hand Scraped Versus Machine Scraped Floors - The Distinction

In society today hardwood flooring has become the new must have. The days of carpet are gone, and if you have looked into bringing your home up to date with the styling of today you will have noticed by now that there are many different options. At times this may become very overwhelming, especially if you are not a hardwood specialist like most people are not. That is why this article is here to help you understand the many different options available to you.

The flooring type covered in this article is hand scraped flooring. This flooring type is a custom look flooring that is in very high demand in flooring marketplace, which is understandable because it is probably the most unique flooring there is. You can choose from many different types of wood species such as oak, maple, hickory, and most exotic species. There is computerized hand scraped that is when the manufacturer makes one piece of wood and places it into a computer that will cut thousands of different wood types with that one design. This type of process is also known as machine scraping. Hardwood floors employing this type of technology usually cost less, but most of the pieces look the same because the hand scraping is done by a machine.

Then you have actual hand scraped flooring that is done all by hand and takes more time and effort than machine scraped. This flooring is made custom each individual piece is scraped and notched in different ways, so every piece is unique. If you decide to purchase actual hand scraped flooring it will cost you more than mass produced computerized version but it will definitely be the more unique option. If you are the type of person who wants to have a one of kind floor then an actual hand scraped floor is the way to go.

So in conclusion hand scraped flooring is a great option for a lot of people. It comes in several different wood types, and several different colors. You can find flooring options for every budget and to meet every style. If having a custom floor in your home it may be important or not important on whether it be computer or done by hand. Most consumers cannot tell the difference between actual hand scraped flooring and machine scraped when just looking at a small sample. So when shopping at your local retailer ask the tough questions and find out if the manufacturer uses machine or authentic hand scrapping on their products.

To view your many options on hand scraped flooring please check out our website that covers all hardwood flooring options.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Hand-Scraped-Versus-Machine-Scraped-Floors---The-Distinction&id=4151157

Some Traps to know and avoid in Web Scraping

In the present day and age, web scraping comes across as a handy tool in the right hands. In essence, web scraping means quickly crawling the web for specific information, using pre-written programs. Scraping efforts are designed to crawl and analyze the data of entire websites, and saving the parts that are needed. Many industries have successfully used web scraping to create massive banks of relevant, actionable data that they use on a daily basis to further their business interests and provide better service to customers. This is the age of the Big Data, and web scraping is one of the ways in which businesses can tap into this huge data repository and come up with relevant information that aids them in every way.

Web scraping, however, does come with its own share of problems and roadblocks. With every passing day, a growing number of websites are trying to actively minimize the instance of scraping and protect their own data to stay afloat in today’s situation of immense competition. There are several other complications which might arise and several traps that can slow you down during your web scraping pursuits. Knowing about these traps and how to avoid them can be of great help if you want to successfully accomplish your web scraping goals and get the amount of data that you require.

Complications in Web Scraping

Over time, various complications have risen in the field of web scraping. Many websites have started to get paranoid about data duplication and data security problems and have begun to protect their data in many ways. Some websites are not generally agreeable to the moral and ethical implications of web scraping, and do not want their content to be scraped. There are many places where website owners can set traps and roadblocks to slow down or stop web scraping activities. Major search engines also have a system in place to discourage scraping of search engine results. Last but not the least, many websites and web services announce a blanket ban on web scraping and say the same in their terms and conditions, potentially leading to legal issues in the event of any scraping.

Here are some of the most common complications that you might face during your web scraping efforts which you should be particularly aware about –

•    Some locations on the intranet might discourage web scraping to prevent data duplication or data theft.

•    Many websites have in place a number of different traps to detect and ban web scraping tools and programs.

•    Certain websites make it clear in their terms and conditions that they consider web scraping an infringement of their privacy and might even consider legal redress.

•    In a number of locations, simple measures are implemented to prevent non-human traffic to websites, making it difficult for web scraping tools to go on collecting data at a fast pace.

To surmount these difficulties, you need a deeper and more insightful understanding of the way web scraping works and also the attitude of website owners towards web scraping efforts. Most major issues can be subverted or quietly avoided if you maintain good working practice during your web scraping efforts and understand the mentality of the people whose sites you are scraping.

Common Problems

With automated scraping, you might face a number of common problems. The behavior of web scraping programs or spiders presents a certain picture to the target website. It then uses this behavior to distinguish between human users and web scraping spiders. Depending on that information, a website may or may not employ particular web scraping traps to stop your efforts. Some of the commonly employed traps are –

Crawling Pattern Checks – Some websites detect scraping activities by analyzing crawling patterns. Web scraping robots follow a distinct crawling pattern which incorporates repetitive tasks like visiting links and copying content. By carefully analyzing these patterns, websites can determine that they are being caused by a web scraping robot and not a human user, and can take preventive measures.

Honeypots – Some websites have honeypots in their webpages to detect and block web scraping activities. These can be in the form of links that are not visible to human users, being disguised in a certain way. Since your web crawler program does not operate the way a human user does, it can try and scrape information from that link. As a result, the website can detect the scraping effort and block the source IP addresses.

Policies – Some websites make it absolutely apparent in their terms and conditions that they are particularly averse to web scraping activities on their content. This can act as a deterrent and make you vulnerable against possible ethical and legal implications.

Infinite Loops – Your web scraping program can be tricked into visiting the same URL again and again by using certain URL building techniques.

These traps in web scraping can prove to be detrimental to your efforts and you need to find innovative and effective ways to surpass these problems. Learning some web crawler tips to avoid traps and judiciously using them is a great way of making sure that your web scraping requirements are met without any hassle.

What you can do

The first and foremost rule of thumb about web scraping is that you have to make your efforts as inconspicuous as possible. This way you will not arouse suspicion and negative behavior from your target websites. To this end, you need a well-designed web scraping program with a human touch. Such a program can operate in flexible ways so as to not alert website owners through the usual traffic criteria used to spot scraping tools.

Some of the measures that you can implement to ensure that you steer clear of common web scraping traps are –

•    The first thing that you need to do is to ascertain if a particular website that you are trying to scrape has any particular dislike towards web scraping tools. If you see any indication in their terms and conditions, tread cautiously and stop scraping their website if you receive any notification regarding their lack of approval. Being polite and honest can help you get away with a lot.

•    Try and minimize the load on every single website that you visit for scraping. Putting a high load on websites can alert them towards your intentions and often might cause them to develop a negative attitude. To decrease the overall load on a particular website, there are many techniques that you can employ.

•    Start by caching the pages that you have already crawled to ensure that you do not have to load them again.

•    Also store the URLs of crawled pages.

•    Take things slow and do not flood the website with multiple parallel requests that put a strain on their resources.

•    Handle your scraping in gentle phases and take only the content you require.

•    Your scraping spider should be able to diversify its actions, change its crawling pattern and present a polymorphic front to websites, so as not to cause an alarm and put them on the defensive.

•    Arrive at an optimum crawling speed, so as to not tax the resources and bandwidth of the target website. Use auto throttling mechanisms to optimize web traffic and put random breaks in between page requests, with the lowest possible number of concurrent requests that you can work with.

•    Use multiple IP addresses for your scraping efforts, or take advantage of proxy servers and VPN services. This will help to minimize the danger of getting trapped and blacklisted by a website.

•    Be prepared to understand the respect the express wishes and policies of a website regarding web scraping by taking a good look at the target ‘robots.txt’ file. This file contains clear instructions on the exact pages that you are allowed to crawl, and the requisite intervals between page requests. It might also specify that you use a pre-determined user agent identification string that classifies you as a scraping bot. adhering to these instructions minimizes the chance of getting on the bad side of website owners and risking bans.

Use an advanced tool for web scraping which can store and check data, URLs and patterns. Whether your web scraping needs are confined to one domain or spread over many, you need to appreciate that many website owners do not take kindly to scraping. The trick here is to ensure that you maintain industry best practices while extracting data from websites. This prevents any incident of misunderstanding, and allows you a clear pathway to most of the data sources that you want to leverage for your requirements.

Hope this article helps in understanding the different traps and roadblocks that you might face during your web scraping endeavors. This will help you in figuring out smart, sensible ways to work around them and make sure that your experience remains smooth. This way, you can keep receiving the important information that you need with web scraping. Following these basic guidelines can help you prevent getting banned or blacklisted and stay in the good books of website owners. This will allow you continue with your web scraping activities unencumbered.

Source: https://www.promptcloud.com/blog/some-traps-to-avoid-in-web-scraping/