Table of Contents
Introduction
Web scraping has become an essential tool in e-commerce, marketing research, consumer sentiment analysis, and even in politics and crime detection. So, with the growing demand for web scraping services, much is said about cloud-based web scraping, particularly in the context of real-time data extraction. Let’s understand how you can benefit from cloud data extraction and highlight the difference between a web scraper cloud-based and a web scraper as a browser extension.
Cloud-based Web Scraping
Web scraping can be performed in 3 major ways: through desktop applications, browser extensions, and cloud-based services. People say that cloud-based scraping solutions are the most flexible ones, and the following facts make it clear:
Proxy rotation
Proxy rotation is used to access the website from a non-restricted location and prevents scrapers from being blocked. Thanks to a proxy server, a new IP address is assigned to a scraper for every connection. This is critical, especially in the case of a large-scale scraping.
So, when you need to send over 1000 requests to various websites, you do it from 1000 various IP addresses, thus preventing scrapers from being detected and blocked by anti-scraping measures.
Scheduler
A scheduler is another important feature enabling to schedule and automate scraping sessions for a certain period on a daily or hourly basis.
Pros and Cons of Cloud-based Web Scraping
To be entirely informed, let’s discover what are the pros and cons of cloud-based scraping.
Pros:
Cons:
Real-time Data with Cloud-based Scraping
If you are hunting real-time data from regularly updated resources like e-commerce sites and social networks, then it is better to use a cloud web scraper. By gathering information up-to-the-moment you will be able to handle timely content analysis and comparison, thus collecting valuable insights about your competitors, customers, and market. Business strategies based on real-time insights will provide you with
The Difference Between a Web Scraper Cloud-Based and a Web Scraper as a Browser Extension
| Cloud Web Scraper | Browser Extension Web Scraper |
|---|---|
| Consistent stability and website accessibility while scraping. | Limited access. You can scrape only websites accessed via the browser. |
| Thanks to IP rotation proxy, the chance of getting blocked is small. | Special tools to overcome the anti-scraping mechanisms should be applied. |
| Scraped data is saved in cloud storage. | Information is saved in the local storage. |
| Images are not loaded during the scraping process. | Images are loaded while scraping. |
| Data exported in XLSX, JSON, and CSV formats. | Data is exported in CSV, XML or Excel formats. |
Conclusion
We’ve already understood how cloud-based web scraping can help you in your business development. It provides you with new opportunities through real-time data analysis. At DataOx we are always happy to offer various cloud-based scraping options to our clients meeting their business needs both financially and technically. Schedule a free consultation with our expert and find out how the DataOx team can help your business grow through cloud-based web scraping.
