Web scraping is the automated process of extracting data from websites.
It involves using software
or scripts to access a website, parse the HTML content, and retrieve specific information. This data
can be stored in a structured format, such as a CSV file or a database, for further analysis or use.
Key Components:
HTTP Requests: Web scrapers send requests to web servers to fetch HTML content of the pages.
HTML Parsing: The fetched HTML is parsed to extract the required data. This can be done using
libraries like BeautifulSoup (Python), Cheerio (Node.js), or similar tools.
Data Extraction: Specific data points are identified and extracted using selectors or regular
expressions.
Data Storage: The extracted data is saved in a structured format like CSV, JSON, or directly into
databases for later use.
Tools and Libraries:
BeautifulSoup: A Python library for parsing HTML and XML documents.
Scrapy: An open-source web crawling framework for Python.
Selenium: A tool for automating web browsers, useful for scraping dynamic content.
Puppeteer: A Node.js library providing a high-level API to control Chrome or Chromium.
Applications:
Market Research: Collecting data on prices, products, and reviews.
Sentiment Analysis: Gathering social media data for analyzing public sentiment.
News Aggregation: Compiling news from various sources into a single platform.
