Data is all around us, and scientists train themselves to question everything. Scientists usually spend hours studying data in their specific field to facilitate learning, understanding, innovation.
However, to procure the volume of data necessary, scientists often need help from computer programs and AI technology. Many times, the correct technology for this job is a web scraping tool.
This article will explain the uses of web scraping for data scientists, information about web scraping, and why ScrapingAnt can help you get the information you need.
Benefits of Web Scraping for Data Scientists
There are many different ways scientists can gather data. Still, now that globalization has opened the world up to everyone, community-driven data is no longer as relevant as worldwide data. If you’re researching industries or any type of research that is not hyper-locally focused, getting data from your immediate area is no longer a realistic representation of the sum that affects this data.
As data scientists quickly learn, it is difficult to collect such a high volume of data manually. Fortunately, you don’t have to do that. Instead, you can employ the API services of web scraping to collect the information you need.
Here are some of the benefits of web scraping specifically for data scientists:
Gather Relevant Scientific Data
When you use web scraping as a data scientist, you can gather relevant data quickly and easily to use throughout your research.
Thousands of people offer their data to different websites every day. If you scrape that website correctly, you can gain all of that data in as little as a few minutes.
This near-instantaneous collection means you no longer need to hit the pavement, making phone calls, or doing surveys to a small group of people. Rather, that information is already available on these websites. They have done all that collection work for you.
Collect Contact Information
Sometimes, you can’t find the data you need for a specific subject through web scraping. However, many websites can get you in contact with people who can give you the information you seek.
You simply need to scrape the websites that attract your target audience.
Gather Product, Stats, and Financial Data
Of course, there is much more to the available data besides people, trends, and contacts. Data scientists can use web scrapers to collect product data from popular retail sites, sports stats to accommodate predictions for the upcoming season, and financial data for research and analysis.
Essentially, with the right web scraping tool and the right websites, you can gain access to oceans of information that would take you a lifetime to collect on your own.
Is Web Scraping Legal?
Yes. Web scraping is simply collecting information. The information on the internet is, for the most part, put out there for public consumption. Therefore, when you web scrape, you are getting available information.
You could scour the websites you wish to scrape yourself and find the information that way, but that is much less efficient.
Plus, if you are using any information you receive as a scientist, you collect the information for research purposes. That means that your conclusions should be generalized and help to inform the general public.
How can ScrapingAnt Help You get the Information You Need?
Data scientists need a lot of data to analyze. While there are many different web scraping tools available, ScrapingAnt is a unique web scraping API tool that circumvents the blocks websites put in place to access their data. The unique way that ScrapingAnt achieves this is by making the system believe that real users are accessing the information, not bots.
Not only does this method allow the ScrapingAnt API to gather information initially, but it also allows the system to continue to scrape websites without being detected and blocked. This feature is essential to getting data scientists the wealth of information they need to continue their research long-term.
Here are some of the ScrapingAnt features that are most useful for data scientists:
- Rendering Chrome Pages: ScrapingAnt takes care of script rendering, headless browser updates, and maintenance for Web Scraping so that you can focus on your research.
- Avoid Captcha: Captcha is the gatekeeper for a website’s information, specifically to keep automated web scrapers from accessing this public information. Fortunately, ScrapingAnt uses a combination of proxies and headless browser chrome settings to sneak past the Captcha guards on most websites without even being noticed.
- Javascript Execution: Every plan available on ScrapingAnt offers the execution, running Javascript at no additional cost. This function helps scientists streamline their process and make it easier to make connections in the data.
- Output Processing: This feature provides data scientists with the ability to analyze and work with plain text output without HTML. After all, many scientists don’t know programming languages. It might not be in their expertise, or scientists simply don’t want to wade through code while finding the correct variables for their research. Output processing takes all of the weight off the data, making it easy to analyze.
- Custom Cookies: With ScrapingAnt, you can send custom cookies to the site you are scraping with GET and POST requests. This function is useful because it helps set the scraping criteria for only session-related data. Using Custom Cookies is another way that ScrapingAnt makes it easier for scientists to extract their data without excessive steps or separating the data from the programming code.
The best part is that these and many other features are available with your subscription. (There is also a free plan. So, you can check out all the different optimization options before you buy!)
In summation, there are many different web scraping tools available. However, no other web scraping tools are as complete, easy to use, and affordable as ScrapingAnt. So, for more information or to start collecting useful data for your research right now, visit ScrapingAnt website or contact ScrapingAnt today.
It only takes a few minutes to sign up, but the unique functionality of ScrapingAnt will save you hours of work while also providing worldwide actionable data.