How to scrape address from Google Maps

If you want to build a new online directory based website and want it to be popular with latest web contents, then you need the help of web scraping services from iWeb scraping. If you want to scrape address from maps.google.com, there is a specialized web scraping tool developed by iWeb scraping which can do the job for you. There are plenty of benefits with web scraping which includes market research, gathering customer information, managing product catalogs, compare prices, gather real estate data, gather job posting information etc. Web scraping technology is very popular nowadays and it saves lot of time and effort involved in manual extraction of data from websites.

The web scraping tools developed iWeb Scraping is very user-friendly and can extract specific information from targeted websites. It converts data from HTML web pages to useful formats like Excel spread sheets or Access database. Whatever web scraping requirements you have, you can contact iWeb Scraping as they have more than 3.5 years of web data extraction experience and offer the best prices in the industry. Also their services are available in 24x7 basis and free pilot projects will be done based on request.

Companies which require specific web data and look for an application which can automate the process and export the HTML data in structured format could benefit greatly from web scraping applications of iWeb scraping. You can easily extract data from multiple target websites, parse and re-assemble the information in HTML format to database or spread sheets as you wish. The application has simple point-and-click user-interface and any beginner can use it scrape address from Google Maps. If you want to gather address of people in particular region from Google maps, you can do it with help of web scraping application developed by iWebscraping.

Web Scraping is a technology that able to digest target website databases that are visible only as HTML web pages, and create a local, identical replica of those databases as a information or result. With our web scraping & web data extraction service we can capture web pages, then pin-point specific pieces of data/information you'd like to extract from web pages. What is needed in this process is much more than a Website crawler and set of Website wrappers. The time required to do web data extraction goes down in comparison to manually data copying and pasting job.

Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/information-technology-articles/how-to-scrape-address-from-google-maps-4683906.html

Limitations and Challenges in Effective Web Data Mining

Web data mining and data collection is critical process for many business and market research firms today. Conventional Web data mining techniques involve search engines like Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc and keyword, directory and topic-based searches. Since the Web's existing structure cannot provide high-quality, definite and intelligent information, systematic web data mining may help you get desired business intelligence and relevant data.

Factors that affect the effectiveness of keyword-based searches include:

• Use of general or broad keywords on search engines result in millions of web pages, many of which are totally irrelevant.

• Similar or multi-variant keyword semantics my return ambiguous results. For an instant word panther could be an animal, sports accessory or movie name.

• It is quite possible that you may miss many highly relevant web pages that do not directly include the searched keyword.

The most important factor that prohibits deep web access is the effectiveness of search engine crawlers. Modern search engine crawlers or bot can not access the entire web due to bandwidth limitations. There are thousands of internet databases that can offer high-quality, editor scanned and well-maintained information, but are not accessed by the crawlers.

Almost all search engines have limited options for keyword query combination. For example Google and Yahoo provide option like phrase match or exact match to limit search results. It demands for more efforts and time to get most relevant information. Since human behavior and choices change over time, a web page needs to be updated more frequently to reflect these trends. Also, there is limited space for multi-dimensional web data mining since existing information search rely heavily on keyword-based indices, not the real data.

Above mentioned limitations and challenges have resulted in a quest for efficiently and effectively discover and use Web resources. Send us any of your queries regarding Web Data mining processes to explore the topic in more detail.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Limitations-and-Challenges-in-Effective-Web-Data-Mining&id=5012994

Data Extraction - A Guideline to Use Scrapping Tools Effectively

So many people around the world do not have much knowledge about these scrapping tools. In their views, mining means extracting resources from the earth. In these internet technology days, the new mined resource is data. There are so many data mining software tools are available in the internet to extract specific data from the web. Every company in the world has been dealing with tons of data, managing and converting this data into a useful form is a real hectic work for them. If this right information is not available at the right time a company will lose valuable time to making strategic decisions on this accurate information.

This type of situation will break opportunities in the present competitive market. However, in these situations, the data extraction and data mining tools will help you to take the strategic decisions in right time to reach your goals in this competitive business. There are so many advantages with these tools that you can store customer information in a sequential manner, you can know the operations of your competitors, and also you can figure out your company performance. And it is a critical job to every company to have this information at fingertips when they need this information.

To survive in this competitive business world, this data extraction and data mining are critical in operations of the company. There is a powerful tool called Website scraper used in online digital mining. With this toll, you can filter the data in internet and retrieves the information for specific needs. This scrapping tool is used in various fields and types are numerous. Research, surveillance, and the harvesting of direct marketing leads is just a few ways the website scraper assists professionals in the workplace.

Screen scrapping tool is another tool which useful to extract the data from the web. This is much helpful when you work on the internet to mine data to your local hard disks. It provides a graphical interface allowing you to designate Universal Resource Locator, data elements to be extracted, and scripting logic to traverse pages and work with mined data. You can use this tool as periodical intervals. By using this tool, you can download the database in internet to you spread sheets. The important one in scrapping tools is Data mining software, it will extract the large amount of information from the web, and it will compare that date into a useful format. This tool is used in various sectors of business, especially, for those who are creating leads, budget establishing seeing the competitors charges and analysis the trends in online. With this tool, the information is gathered and immediately uses for your business needs.

Another best scrapping tool is e mailing scrapping tool, this tool crawls the public email addresses from various web sites. You can easily from a large mailing list with this tool. You can use these mailing lists to promote your product through online and proposals sending an offer for related business and many more to do. With this toll, you can find the targeted customers towards your product or potential business parents. This will allows you to expand your business in the online market.

There are so many well established and esteemed organizations are providing these features free of cost as the trial offer to customers. If you want permanent services, you need to pay nominal fees. You can download these services from their valuable web sites also.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Extraction---A-Guideline-to-Use-Scrapping-Tools-Effectively&id=3600918

Do blog scraping sites violate the blog owner's copyright?

I noticed that my blog has been posted on one of these website scraping sites. This is the kind of site that has no original content, but just repeats or scrapes content others have written and does it to get some small amount of ad income from ads on the scraping site. In essence the scraping site is taking advantage of the content of the originating site in order to make a few dollars from people who go to the site looking for something else. Some of these websites prey on misspelling. If you accidentally misspell the name of an original site, you just may end up with one of these patently commercial scraping sites.

Google defines scraping as follows:

•    Sites that copy and republish content from other sites without adding any original content or value
•    Sites that copy content from other sites, modify it slightly (for example, by substituting synonyms or using automated techniques), and republish it
•    Sites that reproduce content feeds from other sites without providing some type of unique organization or benefit to the user

My question, as set out in the title to this post, is whether or not scraping is a violation of copyright. It turns out that the answer is likely very complicated.  You have to look at the definition of a scraping site very carefully. Let me give you some hypotheticals to show what I mean.

Let's suppose that I write a blog and put a link in my blog post to your blog. Does that link violate your copyright? I can't imagine that anyone would think that there was problem with linking to another website on the Web. In this case, there is no content from the originating site, just a link.

But let's carry the hypothetical a little further. What if I put a link to your site and quote some of your content? Does this violate copyright law? If you are acquainted with any of the terminology of copyright law; think fair use. The issue here is whether or not the "quoted" material is a substantial reproduction of the entire original content? I would have the opinion that duplicating an entire blog post either with or without attribution would be a violation of the originator's copyright.

So is the scraping website protected by the "fair use" doctrine? Does the fact that the motivation for listing the original websites is to make money have anything to do with how you would decide if there was or was not a violation of the originator's copyright? By the way, the copyright does not make a distinction between a commercial and non-commercial use of the original constituting or not constituting a violation of copyright. The fact that the reproducing (scraping) party does not make money from the reproduction is not a factor in the issue of violation, although it may ultimately be an issue as to the amount of damages assessed.

Does the fact that the actions of the scraper annoy me, make any difference? I would answer, not in the least. Whether or not you are annoyed by the violation of the copyright makes no difference as to whether or not there is a violation. Likewise, you have no independent claims for your wounded feelings because of the copied content. Copyright is a statutory action (i.e. based on statutory law) and unless the cause of action is recognized by the law, there is no cause of action. Now, in an outrageous case, you may have  some kind of tort (personal injury) claim, but that is way outside of my hypothetical situation.

So what is the answer? Does scraping violate the originator's copyright? If only a small portion of the blog is copied (scraped) then I would have to have the opinion that it is not. Essentially, no matter what the motivation of the scrapper, there is not enough content copied to violate the fair use doctrine. Now, that is my opinion. Your's might differ. That is what makes lawsuits.

Do I think there are other reasons why scraping websites are objectionable? Certainly, but those reasons have nothing to do with copyright and they are probably the subject of another different blog post. So, if you are reading this from scraping website, bear in mind that there may be a serious problem with that type of website.

Source:http://genealogysstar.blogspot.in/2013/05/do-blog-scraping-sites-violate-blog.html

Seven tools for web scraping – To use for data journalism & creating insightful content

I’ve been creating a lot of (data driven) creative content lately and one of the things I like to do is gathering as much data as I can from public sources. I even have some cases it is costing to much time to create and run database queries and my personal build PHP scraper is faster so I just wanted to share some tools that could be helpful. Just a short disclaimer: use these tools on your own risk! Scraping websites could generate high numbers of pageviews and with that, using bandwidth from the website you are scraping.

1. Scraper (Chrome plugin)

    Scraper is a simple data mining extension for Google Chrome™ that is useful for online research when you need to quickly analyze data in spreadsheet form.

You can select a specific data point, a price, a rating etc and then use your browser menu: click Scrape Similar and you will get multiple options to export or copy your data to Excel or Google Docs. This plugin is really basic but does the job it is build for: fast and easy screen scraping.

2. Simple PHP Scraper

PHP has a DOMXpath function. I’m not going to explain how this function works, but with the script below you can easily scrape a list of URLs. Since it is PHP, use a cronjob to hourly, daily or weekly scrape the desired data. If you are not used to creating Xpath references, use the Scraper for Chrome plugin by selecting the data point and see the Xpath reference directly.

scraper-example

– Click here to download the example script.

3. Kimono Labs

Kimono has two easy ways to scrape specific URLs: just paste the URL into their website or use their bookmark. Once you have pointed out the data you need, you can set how often and when you want the data to be collected. The data is saved in their database. I like the facts that their learning curve is not that steep and it doesn’t look like you need a PHD in engineering to use their software. The disadvantage of this tool is the fact you can’t upload multiple URLs at once.

4. Import.io

Import.io is a browser based web scraping tool. By following their easy step-by-step plan you select the data you want to scrape and the tool does the rest. It is a more sophisticated tool compared to Kimono. I like it because of the fact it shows a clear overview of all the scrapers you have active and you can scrape multiple URLs at once.

5. Outwit Hub

I will start with the two biggest differences compared to the previous tool: it is a softwarepackage to use on your PC or laptop and to use its full potential it will cost you 75 USD. The free version can only scrape 100 rows of data. What I do like is the number of preprogrammed options to scrape which makes it easy to start and learn about web scraping.

6. ScraperWiki

This tool is really for people wanting to scrape on a massive scale. You can code your own scrapers (in PHP, Ruby & Python) and pricing is really cheap looking to what you can get: 29USD / month for 100 datasets. You are completely free in using libraries and timers. And if your programming skills are not good enough, they can help you out (paid service though). Compared to other tools, this is the most advanced tool that offers the basics of web scraping.

7. Fminer.com

This tool made it possible to finally scrape all the data inside Google Webmaster Tools since it can deal with JavaScript and AJAX interfaces. Read my extensive review on this page: Scraping Webmaster Tools with FMiner!

But on the end, building your individual project scrapers will always be more effective than using predefined scrapers. Am I missing any tools in this sum up of tools?

Source: http://www.notprovided.eu/7-tools-web-scraping-use-data-journalism-creating-insightful-content/

Web Scraping’s 2013 Review – part 2

As promised we came back with the second part of this year’s web scraping review. Today we will focus not only on events of 2013 that regarded web scraping but also Big data and what this year meant for this concept.

First of all, we could not talked about the conferences in which data mining was involved without talking about TED conferences. This year the speakers focused on the power of data analysis to help medicine and to prevent possible crises in third world countries. Regarding data mining, everyone agreed that this is one of the best ways to obtain virtual data.

Also a study by MeriTalk  a government IT networking group, ordered by NetApp showed this year that companies are not prepared to receive the informational revolution. The survey found that state and local IT pros are struggling to keep up with data demands. Just 59% of state and local agencies are analyzing the data they collect and less than half are using it to make strategic decisions. State and local agencies estimate that they have just 46% of the data storage and access, 42% of the computing power, and 35% of the personnel they need to successfully leverage large data sets.

Some economists argue that it is often difficult to estimate the true value of new technologies, and that Big Data may already be delivering benefits that are uncounted in official economic statistics. Cat videos and television programs on Hulu, for example, produce pleasure for Web surfers — so shouldn’t economists find a way to value such intangible activity, whether or not it moves the needle of the gross domestic product?

We will end this article with some numbers about the sumptuous growth of data available on the internet.  There were 30 billion gigabytes of video, e-mails, Web transactions and business-to-business analytics in 2005. The total is expected to reach more than 20 times that figure in 2013, with off-the-charts increases to follow in the years ahead, according to researches conducted by Cisco, so as you can see we have good premises to believe that 2014 will be at least as good as 2013.

Source:http://thewebminer.com/blog/2013/12/

Web Data Extraction: driving data your way

Most businesses rely on the web to gather data such as product specifications, pricing information, market trends, competitor information, and regulatory details. More often than not, companies collect this data manually—a process that not only takes a significant amount of time, but also has the potential to introduce costly errors.

By automating data extraction, you're able to free yourself (and your pointer finger) from hours of copy/pasting, eliminate human errors, and focus on the parts of your job that make you feel great.

Web data extraction: What it is, why it's used, and how to get it right on an ongoing basis

Web data extraction, screen scraping, web harvesting—while these terms may have different connotations they all essentially point to the same thing: plucking data from the web and populating it in an organized way in another place for further analysis or more focused use. In an era where “big data” has become a commonplace concept, the appeal of web data extraction has grown; it’s an extremely efficient alternative to web browsing, and culls very specific data for a focused purpose.

How it's used

While each company’s needs vary, data extraction is often used for:

    Competitive intelligence, including web popularity, social perception, other sites linking to them, and placement of competitor advertisements

    Gathering financial data including stock market movement, product pricing, and more

    Creating continuity between price sheets and online websites, catalogs, or inventory databases

    Capturing product specifications like dimensions, color, and materials

    Pulling tabular data from multiple sources for in-depth analysis

Interestingly, some people even find that web data extraction can aid them in their leisure time as well, pulling data from blogs and websites that pertain to their hobbies or interests, and creating their own library of organized information on a topic. Perhaps, for instance, you want a list of all the designers that George Clooney wears (hey- we won’t question what you do in your free time). By using web scraping tools, you could automatically extract this type of data from, say, a fashion blogger who follows celebrity style, and create your own up-to-date shopping list of items.

How it's done

When you think of gathering data from the web, you should mentally juxtapose two different images: one of gathering a bucket of sand one grain at a time, and one of filling a bucket with a shovel that has the perfect scoop size to fill it completely in one sitting. While clearly the second method makes the most sense, the majority of web data extraction happens much like the first process--manually, and slowly.

Let’s take a look at a few different ways organizations extract data today.

The least productive way: manually

While this method is the least efficient, it’s also the most widespread. On the plus side, you need to learn absolutely nothing except “Ctrl+C/V” to use this method, which explains why it is the generally preferred method, despite the hours of time it can take. Imagine, for instance, managing a sales spreadsheet that keeps inventory up to date so that the information can be properly disseminated to a global sales team. Not only does it take a significant amount of time to update the spreadsheet with information from, say, your internal database and manufacturer’s website, but information may change rapidly, leaving sales reps with inaccurate information regardless.

Finding someone in the organization with a talent for programming languages like Python

Generally, automating a task without dedicated automation software requires programming, and therefore an internal resource with a solid familiarity with programming languages to create the task and corresponding script. While most organizations do, in fact, have a resource in IT or engineering with this type of ability, it often doesn’t seem like a worthy time investment for that person to derail the initiatives he or she is working on to automate web data extraction. Additionally, if companies do choose to automate using in-house resources, that person will find himself beholden to a continuing obligation, since he or she will need to adjust scripting if web objects and attributes change, disabling the task.

Outsourcing via Elance or oDesk

Unless there is a dedicated resource ready to automate and maintain data extraction processes (and most organizations wouldn’t necessarily choose to use their in-house employee time this way), companies might turn to outsourcing companies such as Elance or oDesk to hire contract help. While this is an effective way to automate a task using a resource that has a level of acumen in automation, it represents an additional cost--be it one time or on a regular basis as data extraction requirements change or increase.

Using Excel web queries

Since more often than not, data extracted from the web is often populated into an Excel spreadsheet, it’s no wonder that Excel includes web query tools expressly for that purpose. These tools are particularly useful in pulling tabular data from a website (such as product specifications, legal codes, stock prices, and a host of other information) and automatically pushing the data into a spreadsheet. Excel queries do have limitations and a learning curve, however, particularly when creating dynamic web queries. And clearly, if you’re hoping to populate the information in other sources, such as external databases, there is yet another level of difficulty to navigate.

How automation simplifies web data extraction

Culling web data quickly

Using automation is the simplest way to extract web data. As you execute the steps necessary to perform the task one time, a macro recorder captures each action, automatically generates an easily-editable script, and lets you specify how often you would like to repeat the task, and at what speed.

Maintaining the highest level of accuracy

With humans copy/pasting data, or comparing between multiple screens and entering data manually into a spreadsheet, you’re likely to run into accuracy issues (sometimes directly proportionate to the amount of time spent on the task and amount of coffee in the office!) Automation software ensures that “what you see is what you get,” and that data is picked up from the web and put back down where you want it without a hitch.

Storing web data in your preferred format

Not only can you accurately transfer data with automation software, you can also ensure that it’s populated into spreadsheets or databases in the format you prefer. Rather than simply dumping the data into a spreadsheet, you can ensure that the right information is put into the proper column, row, field, and style (think, for instance, of the difference between writing a birth date as “03/13/1912” and “12/3/13”).

Simplifying data analysis

Automation software allows you to aggregate data from disparate sources or enormous stockpiles of structured or unstructured data in a way that makes sense for your business analysis needs. This way, the majority of employees in an organization can perform some level of analysis on their own, making it easier to surface information that informs business decisions.

Reacting to changes without a hitch

Because automation software is built to recognize icons, images, symbols, and other objects regardless of their position on a screen, it can automate processes in a self-perpetuating manner. For example, let’s say you automate data retrieval from a certain chart on a retailer’s website without automation software. If the retailer decides to move that object to another area of the screen, your task would no longer produce accurate results (or work at all), leaving you to make changes to the script (or find someone who can), or re-record the task altogether. With image recognition capabilities, however, the system “memorizes” the object itself, not merely its coordinates, so that the task can continue to run irrespective of changes.

The wide sweeping appeal of automation software

Companies often pick a comprehensive automation solution not only because of its ability to effectively automate any web data extraction task, but also because it goes beyond data extraction. Automation software can permeate into other areas of the business as well, making tasks such as application integration, data migration, IT processes, Excel automation, testing, and routine tasks such as launching applications or formatting files faster and more accurate. Because it requires no programming experience to use, adoption rates are higher and businesses get more “bang for their buck.”

Almost any organization can benefit from using automation software, particularly as they grow and scale. If you are looking to quit “moving grains of sand” and start claiming back time in your day, there are a few steps you can take:

 Watch a short video that shows how web data extraction is done with automation software

 Download a free trial and start reaping the benefits of downloading even just a couple of tasks today.

 See how tasks are automated with our short, step-by-step how-to-sheets (and then give it a try yourself!)

Source: https://www.automationanywhere.com/web-data-extraction