It is said that 73% of all the data on the internet often go unused and unanalyzed. This means that only a tiny fraction of all the generated data is put into any use.
But this doesn’t have to be so, and businesses can find simpler ways of getting data as it has proven to be an essential ingredient of doing business today.
Without data, businesses will find it more difficult to make reasonable decisions or create business insights and intelligence that can spur growth.
Finding and collecting data is also subject to several challenges; companies need to know how to crawl a website without getting blocked.
What Is Web Crawling?
Web crawling is also known as web indexing and generally refers to the process used to collect and index the information contained on websites and webpages.
It differs from web scraping in that web crawling is used to collect the URLs and links used for web scraping. And without web crawling, data extraction would be random, unorganized, and completely ineffective.
It should be noted that rather than using scrapers to go from one webpage to the other looking for data, crawlers index what look like URLs that lead to related topics and help to fasten the actual data collection.
Use Cases of Web Crawlers
Below are some of the most common uses of web crawlers.
- Indexing Websites
The internet is a big world with billions and millions of websites. Yet internet users can find what they are looking for in mere seconds.
This complements the web crawlers that search the whole World Wide Web and collect similar information and hyperlinks, then index them in categories that make it easier to find results to queries.
- Research
Web crawling is also vital for conducting market research. This type of research is important for business owners to know what they are doing.
For instance, before a band can penetrate a new market or manufacture a new product, it needs to perform adequate research that can inform them whether or not it should do it.
Web crawlers are used for collecting information from the different corners of the market for these types of research.
- E-Commerce
E-Commerce widely refers to the business of selling products and services on the internet. It is a growing market that is known to be highly profitable.
But it is also easy for brands to make mistakes when they don’t rely on data.
Crawlers can be used to collect data such as product availability and pricing to make digital business more progressive.
- Brand Protection
Fraud, counterfeiting, identity theft, and reputational damages can all be avoided when the right data is collected regularly.
To ensure that the image is protected on all fronts on the internet, brands use crawlers to continually collect a tiny bit of information that affects the name, assets, and reputation of the company.
How Web Crawlers Are Becoming Increasingly Necessary
Web crawlers are growing in importance, especially because there are not too many substitutes out there.
Also, the tool does a great job of performing all its tasks promptly, whether it is to index websites or protect the brand from any form of harm.
There has been more advancement in how these tools are developed, and currently, we have three different classes of web crawlers.
The first groups are browser-based and only function as extensions within any browser. They may also be APIs-based and only connect with programs that support this feature.
However, they are limiting in many ways. For instance, they are not easy to customize or scale up and can only collect what the central server allows.
The other types of crawlers, either self-built or ready-to-use, are more encompassing and can handle any platform or website.
They can also be easily customized to serve different needs and can be scaled up or integrated to work with other necessary tools such as proxies.
However, these groups may be more expensive and require higher maintenance than the first group. They also require certain technical know-how to be built or operated successfully.
How to Crawl a Website without Getting Blocked
The following are important tips on how to crawl a website without getting blocked:
- Check Robots.txt Protocol
Most websites have rules and regulations guiding crawling and scraping contained within the Robots.txt file.
By checking and confirming, you can know whether or not a website can be scraped and what to do to avoid getting blocked.
- Use A Proxy Service
Proxies are the go-to tools for avoiding blocking on the internet. They are usually equipped with a large pool of IPs and locations which you can choose from to prevent any issues.
- Avoid Honeypot Traps
Honeypots are links embedded with the HTML code and appear like the real deal, but clicking on them can induce an immediate blocking.
This often happens because they are invisible to the organic user but are visible to crawling bots. Once the bot clicks it, it gives itself away as software and gets the boot.
- Always Change Patterns
Since crawling is a repetitive task, it is always easy to get carried away and maintain the same task for simplicity.
But this can make it easier for the website to recognize you and block your further activities.
Instead, change patterns after every few crawls to put the system off your scent.
Conclusion
Gathering publicly available data is necessary for business growth, but no one says it is without its challenges.
However, a few tricks and tips would help you avoid blocks and get the data you need quickly and efficiently. See a new article here to find out more ways how to crawl a website without getting blocked.