Myths and Facts About Web Scraping

When people use some tools very commonly, then some people create rumors and myths about web scraping. Similarly, many people are working as web scraper; therefore, several myths and facts about web scraping should be in everyone's knowledge. A variety of applications are seen today for web scrapping. But there are many misconceptions, misunderstandings, and myths that are in our surroundings regarding web scrapping. Many people have a false impression of web scrapping because they consider it as an act of theft. Due to these myths, many people are confused about using the method of web scraping for data gathering. In this article, you can know about myths and facts about web scraping.

Web Scraping:

Web scraping is simply an extraction and gathering of data from different websites using web scraping tools and applications. Nowadays, there are many false things we have to listen to web scrapping; these are also known as myths, but there are also some facts behind these myths.

To know about myths and facts about web scraping, read this article till the end.

Common Myths And Facts About Web Scraping:

There are following myths, which are commonly we here in our surroundings about web scraping. But what is the reality of these myths, and what is the fact behind them you can also learn the most common myths and facts about web scraping mention below.

1.       Web scraping is considered as illegal:

One very common myth about web scraping is that it is an illegal act to gather data from other sites. The data gathered through web scraping is used for both good and bad purposes.

Suppose you scrap data from a site than must ensure the policies and follow them for gathering data if you take care of their policies and use data with the permission of the author, then web scraping is not illegal.

It clears that what is myth and fact about web scraping act as legal or illegal.

2.       Web scraping is cheap:

Web scraping is not an easy process as it seems to be. It is not a point to scrap data just on one click. It needs more effort to maintain and scrap data very well. For this process, there are heavy expenses that scraper should arrange.

But on the other hand, you can do it for free of cost if you are intelligent and know how to write a scraping script than no need to invest any amount on scarping data. Therefore you can not say that web scraping is a cheap process.

3.       Web scraping is similar to crawling:

Many people use these two terms interchangeably, but they don't know the difference, and they consider it the same thing. Web scraping uses to extract and collect data from websites while web crawling is indexing; it is used to approach different links. It clears that web scraping and web crawling are not similar things. They are different terms used for different purposes.

4.       Web scraping is used to scrap personal data:

People have the greatest misconception about web scraping. Many people who are not about that myth are afraid of web scraping because they think that web scraping can be used to extract personal information such as contact details, addresses and email addresses etc. many companies use this information to make them clients. But it is wrong and only a misunderstanding of people due to a lack of knowledge because these pieces of information on most websites are not authentic.

5.       Web scraping is resilient:

A web scraper consists of a set of codes to imitate human actions on web-pages to browse, copy information and paste it in another file. Most modern web pages have a complex structure. They are often designed so to either accommodate creative features or provide privacy and security to the web pages.

Moreover, most pages and their structures are frequently updated by the owners. There are many reasons for updating a website like this because it makes it difficult for a scrapper to scrap your data. Due to the regular updating of the page, it is not easy to scrape data with a single scraping code.

6.       For scraping data you have to know about code:

Many people think that if they have no grip on programming and coding the don't scarp data. Actualy it is another myth due to lack of knowledge. The myths and facts about web scarping originate due to a lack of knowledge and rumors. You don't need to be an expert programmer for scrapping data.

But still, if you don't know much about scrapping data, then you can heir someone for ding scrapping for you.

7.       You can scrap every website and web page:

The biggest misunderstanding about scraping is that you can scrap every website, and this doesn't seem right. Some websites have very strict privacy; therefore, no one can scrap data from these websites. It depends upon the privacy and restrictions of the website that either you can scrap data from those websites or not.

If the page is protected and has right copy restrictions, then no scraper can extract data from the web page. And if any case scraper wants to collect data from that website, then he should strictly follow the rules and regulations of that web page.

These are the common myths that are mentioned above, whenever you want to scrap any data from the website, then don't believe on rumors and don't tuck in misconceptions if you are a scrapper than you should know about the myths and facts about web scraping.

Proxies:

A proxy  is an intermediate between the user and the internet. It forwards your request to your required site; in other words, it gives you an approach. Proxies are used to control the internet usage and improving internet speeds. Moreover, proxies have a very critical role in privacy protection.

There are several web scraping proxies people are using to access different sites. Even some proxies are specially designed to get access to blocked sites. There are many types of proxies, such as transparent proxies, distorting proxies etc. When you scarp data from websites, you have to work through these proxies. ProxyAqua offers very reliable and virgin private proxies which are very cheaper as compared to the market. 

Final words:

Several people still believe in myths about web scraping. In this article, we have tried our best to explain the most common myths and facts about web scraping. Whenever you came to know about some rumor and myth, don't believe. Just go to your browser and search the facts.  This article will prove helpful for you to know about myths and facts about web scraping.