Hire a Freelance Web Scraper

How to Hire a Freelance Web Scraper

Some websites contain extremely valuable information and data. There are different kinds of data on every website such as stock prices, product details, sports statistics, company contacts, and much more. Accessing this information would require either copying and pasting the information manually into a new document, or using the format that the website uses. This is where web scraping comes in!

Web scraping is a process of extracting data from web pages. It can be done manually, but it is usually done using automated software. Python is a popular language for web scraping, due to its robust libraries and ease of use. There are many use cases for web scraping, such as collecting data for market research or monitoring prices on e-commerce websites. Web scraping can be a time-consuming process, but it can be very helpful for extracting large amounts of data that would be difficult to obtain manually.

What Exactly Is Web Scraping?

Web scraping is a manual process that extracts data from websites. A user can export this information into more useful formats after collecting it, such as spreadsheets and APIs (application programming interfaces). Web scrappers have many features to make the task easier like automation tools for faster collection or search algorithms so you don't have to keep scrolling through pages of posts when looking for particular things online!

How Do Web Scrapers Work?

Automated web scraping is simple... yet also complex. On one hand, the process is straightforward and easy to use. But on the other hand, there are a lot of moving parts and intricate details that make it challenging.

It's important to remember that when a web developer is creating a website, he/she is not designing it for machines. Websites actually are designed for people. After all, people will be using your site, not machines.

An URL will be provided to the web scraper before it starts scraping. When it starts scraping, it will load the page's HTML code. In more advanced scrapes, CSS and Javascript elements will be rendered along with the website.

If the user selects specific data, the scraper will extract it before the project is run, or if all data is extracted, it will extract all data from the page.

In a perfect world, the user would select specific data from the page that they are looking for. An Amazon product listing expert might need to scrape an Amazon product page to find prices and models, but may not necessarily care about product reviews.

Finally, The web scraper prepares all of the data that it gathers in the most easy-to-use format.

For the most part, web scrapers output data as CSV or Excel spreadsheets, but more advanced ones may support a variety of other formats, such as JSON, which is useful for APIs and API developers.

What Kinds of Web Scrapers are There?

Depending on the circumstances, web scrapers can differ significantly from one another. Several of these aspects will be divided into four categories for clarification. Comparing web scrapers is more complex, so there are more factors to consider.

• self-built or pre-built
• browser extension vs software
• User interface
• Cloud vs Local

Self-built or Pre-built

Web scrapers still require programming knowledge to be built using the tools available. The more features you want your scraper to have, the bigger scope of web scraper programming knowledge it requires.

Additionally, there are a number of pre-built web scrapers that can be downloaded and used immediately. Additionally, some tools will include advanced features such as scheduling scrape jobs, exporting data to JSON or Google Sheets, and more.

Browser extension vs Software

A web scraper can be either a browser extension or computer software.

The extension for Google Chrome or Firefox is an app-like program that adds functionality to your browser.

Web scraping extensions are easier to use and integrated into your browser, making them more convenient. These extensions, however, are restricted by the fact that they reside in your browser. It would be impossible to implement any advanced features outside of the browser. Web scraping extension would not support IP Rotations, for example.

In contrast, you will be able to download and install web scraping software onto your computer. However, they offer advanced features unrestricted by your browser, making them more convenient than browser extensions.

User Interface

Web scrapers have very different user interfaces. Web scraping tools, for example, may run using a command line and a minimal user interface. This may not be intuitive to users.

A web scraper with a full-fledged UI/UX design would allow users to just click on the data they want to scrape and the website would be rendered for them on the fly. Most people with limited technical knowledge can work with these web scrapers.

In some cases, scrapers integrate help tips and suggestions within their UI to ensure that the users understand how to use each feature.

Cloud vs Local

The local web scrapers will use your computer's resources and your Internet connection to scrape the web. Your computer may become very slow while your scrape runs if your web scraper consumes a lot of CPU or RAM. It may take hours for your computer to complete long scraping tasks.

Additionally, if you use a scraper to crawl many URLs (such as product pages), it can exhaust your ISP's data cap.

Cloud scrapers don't run on the scraper's own server but use one that's hosted offsite by the web scraper developer. Hence, your scraper will free up your computer's resources while it collects data. Later, when the scrape is ready to be exported, you can work on other tasks.

In addition, advanced features such as IP rotation can be easily integrated so that scrapers do not get blocked by major websites for scraping.

What Are Web Scrapers Used for?

You probably can think of several ways to use web scrapers at this point. We have mentioned a few of the most common web scrapers’ usages below.

• Scraping of real estate listings
• Statistics and insights about the industry
• Shopping comparison sites
• Generating leads

The Popularity of Web Scraping

As a result, it should not come as a surprise, since web scraping offers something that no other method can: structured data gathered from public websites.

Data scraping is an innovative process of acquiring data from the internet to improve operations, executive decisions, and customer service experiences. The impact it's having on companies cannot even be imagined!

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Web Scraper?

Due to the rise of the gig economy, this option is becoming increasingly popular. Web scraping costs vary widely with freelancers because the prices are based mainly on the individual freelancer's discretion. According to Glassdoor, web scraping freelancers are available for as low as $30/hour. You might pay up to $100 for an experienced freelancer.

Costs are also impacted by the location of freelancers. The price may be twice or three times higher in countries like the US or the UK than in India or Pakistan. To make sure you find the perfect web scraping freelancer for your project, it is important that you compare different ones.

3 Things to Consider to Hire a Web Scraper

There are a few things you need to consider before hiring a freelance web scraper. The web scraping service that you choose may affect your web scraping cost and determine the quality of data you receive.

1. Scraping frequency

It's possible that a website you're scraping from will stop you from scraping after some time if you plan to scrape a lot of data. If that is the case, your web scraping tool should rotate IP addresses to avoid being banned or your freelance web scraper should be able to resolve anti-scraping issues.

2. The number of websites you wish to scrape

You should also consider the number of sites you want to scrape before selecting a scraping method. When there are so many websites to scrape, managing crawlers can be a nightmare. Web scraping is a popular service for businesses that don't want to worry about maintaining it.

The freelance web scraper should use a web scraping tool that manages multiple crawlers at once and integrates with different systems for transferring the information. You can also hire a freelancer or team to take care of the entire project on your behalf.

3. Scraped data quality

The data quality should also be considered, including data coverage and data accuracy, in addition to scraping frequency and number of scraping sites. Your scraping approach should be able to scrape without missing or misplacing important data. Data analysis may require the cleaning of certain data. Before hiring any scraping service, you should specify the data you require clearly. To ensure that the results of the data meet your requirements, always ask for sample data.

Conclusion

A web scraper collects structured data from websites using an automated process. Web data extraction is another term for it. Web scraping has a variety of applications, such as price monitoring, price intelligence, news monitoring, lead generation, and market research.

The vast amounts of publicly available web data are used by people and businesses looking to make smarter decisions based on the information obtained through web data extraction.

If you're looking for a web scraping freelancer, then check out our talented team of website scrapers on Perfectlancer. They can help with data extraction and manipulation to make your life easier! Post your web scraping project in a few clicks to get started.