Tuesday 28 April 2015

Web Scraping – An Illegal Activity or Simple Data Collection?

Gone are the days when skillful extraction of information pertaining to real estate such as foreclosures, homes for sale, or mortgage records was considered difficult. Now, it is not only easy to extract data from real estate websites but also scrape real estate data on a consistent basis to add more value to your portal, or ensure that updated data is available to your visitors at all times. From downloading actual scanned documents in the form of PDF files to scraping websites for deeds or mortgages, smartly designer data extraction tools can do it all.

However, the one question that still manages to come to the front in the minds of those who scrape real estate listings and others are whether the act is illegal in nature or a simple way of collecting data.

Take a look.

Web Scraping—What is it?

Generally speaking, web scraping refers to programs that are designed to simulate human internet surfing and access websites on behalf of their users. These tools are effective in collecting large quantities of data that are otherwise difficult for end users to access. They process semi-structured or unstructured data pages of targeted websites and transform available data into a more structured format that can be extracted or manipulated by the user easily.

Quite similar to web indexing that is used by search engines, the end motivation of web scraping is much different. While web indexing makes search engines far more efficient, the latter is used for reasons like market research, change detection, data monitoring, or in some events, theft. But then, it is not always a bad thing. You just need to know if a website allows web scraping before proceeding with the act.

Fine Line between Stealing and Collecting Information

Web scraping rides an extremely fine line between the acts of collecting relevant information and stealing the same. The websites that have copyright disclosure statements in place to protect their website information are offended by outsiders raiding their data without due permission. In other words, it amounts to trespassing on their portal, which is unacceptable—both ethically and legally. So, it is very important for you to read all disclosure statements carefully and follow along in the right way. As web scraping cases may turn into felony offenses, it is best to guard against any kind of scrupulous activity and take permission before scraping data.

The Good News

However, all is not grey in data extraction processes. Reputed agencies are helping their clients scrape valuable data for gaining more value through legal means and carefully used tools. If you are looking for such services, then do get in touch with a reliable web scraping company of your choice and take your business to the next levels of success.

Source: https://3idatascraping.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/web-scraping-an-illegal-activity-or-simple-data-collection/

Wednesday 22 April 2015

How to Properly Scrape Windows During The Cleaning Process

Removing ordinary dirt such as dust, fingerprints, and oil from windows seem simple enough. However, sometimes, you may find stubborn caked-on dirt or debris on your windows that cannot be removed by standard window cleaning techniques such as scrubbing or using a squeegee. The best way to remove caked-on dirt on your windows is to scrape it off. Nonetheless, you have to be extra careful when you are scraping your windows, because they can be easily scratched and damaged. Here are a number of rules that you need to follow when you are scraping windows.

Rule No. 1: It is recommended that you use a professional window scraper to remove caked-on dirt and debris from your windows. This type of scraper is specially made for use on glass, and it comes with certain features that can prevent scratching and other kinds of damage.

Rule No. 2: It is important to inspect your window scraper before using it. Take a look at the blade of the scraper and make sure that it is not rusted. Also, it must not be bent or chipped off at the corners. If you are not certain whether the blade is in a good enough condition, you should just play it safe by using a new blade.

Rule No. 3: When you are working with a window scraper, always use forward plow-like scraping motions. Scrape forward and lift the scraper off the glass, and then scrape forward again. Try not to slide the scraper backwards, because you may trap debris under the blade when you do so. Consequently, the scraper may scratch the glass.

Rule No. 4: Be extra cautious when you are using a window scraper on tempered glass. Tempered glass may have raised imperfections, which make it more vulnerable to scratches. To find out if the window that you are scraping is made of tempered glass, you have to look for a label in one of its corners.

Window Scraping Procedures

Before you start scraping, you have to wet your window with soapy water first. Then, find out how the window scraper works by testing it in a corner. Scrape on the same spot three or four times in forward motion. If you find that the scraper is moving smoothly and not scratching the glass, you can continue to work on the rest of the window. On the other hand, if you feel as if the scraper is sliding on sandpaper, you have to stop scraping. This indicates that the glass may be flawed and have raised imperfections, and scraping will result in scratches.

After you have ascertained that it is safe to scrape your window, start working along the edges. It is best that you start scraping from the middle of an edge, moving towards the corners. Work in a one or two inch pattern, until all the edges of the glass are properly scraped. After that, scrape the rest of the window in a straight pattern of four or five inches, working from top to bottom. If you find that the window is beginning to dry while you are working, wet it with soapy water again.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Properly-Scrape-Windows-During-The-Cleaning-Process&id=6592930

Tuesday 7 April 2015

The Nasty Problem with Scraping Results from the Engines

One theme that I've been concerned with this week centers around data transparency in the search engine world. Search engines provide information that is critical to the business of optimizing and growing a business on the web, yet barriers to this data currently force many companies to use methods of data extraction that violate the search engines' terms of service.

Specifically, we're talking about two pieces of information that no large-scale, successful web operation should be without. These include rankings (the position of their site(s) vs. their competitors) for important keywords and link data (currently provided most accurately through Yahoo!, but also available through MSN and in lower quality formats from Google).

Why do marketers and businesses need this data so badly? First we'll look at rankings:

•    For large sites in particular, rankings across the board will go up or down based on their actions and the actions of their competition. Any serious company who fails to monitor tweaks to their site, public relations, press and optimization tactics in this way will lose out to competitors who do track this data and, thus, can make intelligent business decisions based on it.

•    Rankings provide a benchmark that helps companies estimate their global reach in the search results and make predictions about whether certain areas of extension or growth make logical sense. If a company must decide on how to expand their content or what new keywords to target or even if they can compete in new markets, the business intelligence that can be extracted from large swaths of ranking data is critical.

•    Rankings can be mapped directly to traffic, allowing companies to consider advertising, extending their reach or forming partnerships

And, on the link data side:

•    Temporal link information allows marketers to see what effects certain link building, public relations and press efforts have on a site's link profile. Although some of this data is available through referring links in analytics programs, many folks are much more interested in the links that search engines know about and count, which often includes many more than those that pass traffic (and also ignores/doesn't count some that do pass traffic).

•    Link data may provide references for reputation management or tracking of viral campaigns - again, items that analytics don't entirely encompass.

•    Competitive link data may be of critical importance to many marketers - this information can't be tracked any other way.

I admit it. SEOmoz is a search engine scraper - we do it for our free public tools, for our internal research and we've even considered doing it for clients (though I'm seriously concerned about charging for data that's obtained outside TOS). Many hundreds of large firms in the search space (including a few that are 10-20X our size) do it, too. Why? Because search engine APIs aren't accurate.

Let's look at each engine's abilities and data sources individually. Since we've got a few hundred thousand points of data (if not more) on each, we're in a good position to make calls about how these systems are working.

Google (all APIs listed here):

•    Search SOAP API - provides ranking results that are massively different from almost every datacenter. The information is often less than useless, it's actually harmful, since you'll get a false sense of what's happening with your positions.

•    AJAX Search API - This is really designed to be integrated with your website, and the results can be of good quality for that purpose, but it really doesn't serve the job of providing good stats reporting.

•    AdSense & AdWords APIs - In all honesty, we haven't played around with these, but the fact that neither will report the correct order of the ads, nor will they show more than 8 ads at a time tells me that if a marketer needed this type of data, the APIs wouldn't work.

Yahoo! (APIs listed here):

•    Search API - Provides ranking information that is a somewhat accurate map to Yahoo!'s actual rankings, but is occassionally so far off-base that they're not reliable. Our data points show a lot more congruity with Yahoo!'s than Google's, but not nearly enough when compared with scraped results to be valuable to marketers and businesses.

•    Site Explorer API - Shows excellent information as far as number of pages indexed on a site and the link data that Yahoo! knows about. We've been comparing this information with that from scraped Yahoo! search results (for queries like linkdomain: and site:) and those at the Site Explorer page and find that there's very little quality difference in the results returned, though the best estimate numbers can still be found through a last page search of results.

•    Search Marketing API - I haven't played with this one at all, so I'd love to hear comments from those who have.

MSN:

•    Doesn't mind scraping as long as you use the RSS results. We do, we love them and we commend MSN for giving them out - bravo! They've also got a web search SDK program, but we've yet to give it a whirl. The only problem is the MSN estimates, which are so far off as to be useless. The links themselves, though, are useful.

Ask.com

•    Though it's somewhat hidden, the XML.Teoma.com page allows for scraping of results and Ask doesn't seem to mind, though they haven't explicitly said anything. Again, bravo! - the results look solid, accurate and match up against the Ask.com queries. Now, if Ask would only provide links

I know a lot of you are probably asking:

•    "Rand, if scraping is working, why do you care about the search engines fixing the APIs?"

•    The straight answer is that scraping hurts the search engines, hurts their users and isn't the most practical way to get the data. Let me give you some examples:

•    Scraped queries have to look as much like real users as possible to avoid detection and banning - thus, they affect the query data that search engineers use to improve web search.

•    These queries also hit advertisers - falsifying the number of "real" impressions that advertisers see and lowering their CTRs unnaturally.

•    They take up search engine resources and though even the heaviest scraping barely impacts their server loads, it's still an annoyance.

•    With all these negative elements, and so many positive incentives to have the data, it's clear what's needed - a way for marketers/businesses to get the data they need without hurting the search engines. Here's how they can do it:

•    Provide the search ranking position of a site in the referral string - this works for ranking data, but not for link data and since Yahoo! (and Google) both send referrals through re-directs at times, it wouldn't be a hard piece to add.

•    Make the API's accurate, complete and unlimited

•    If the last option is too ambitious, the search engines could charge for API queries - anyone who needs the data would be more than happy to pay for it. This might help with quality control, too.

•    For link data - serve up accurate, wholistic data in programs like Google Sitemaps and Yahoo! Search Submit (or even, Google Analytics). Obviously, you'd only get information about your own site after verifying.

I've talked to lots of people at the search engine level about making changes this week (including Jeremy, Priyank, Matt, Adam, Aaron, Brett and more). I can only hope for the best...

Source: http://moz.com/blog/the-nasty-problem-with-scraping-results-from-the-engines