Extracting Data at Scale Using Web Scraper Cloud.

Data nowadays can be the driving fuel of a company. With the huge increase in technology and data, it has become more important than ever to retrieve, transform, and store that data correctly and effectively.

Web Scraper Cloud can be your perfect tool for data extraction, transformation, and maintenance - we’ve got it all covered, and here is how!

RETRIEVE.

Community sitemaps.

Community sitemaps are like a search engine where it is possible to find the most popular and most requested data extraction sitemaps of websites like, for example, Amazon, Walmart, Tripadvisor, Yelp, and others.

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It is designed so that it can be used with ease and so that our users can retrieve the most relevant data in only a few minutes.

Steps to retrieve data through community sitemaps:

1. In the search bar, input your desired website you are looking to retrieve data.
2. Decide upon what specific information you need.
3. Designate a start URL.

For example (Image above), we have searched for Walmart, and from this log on, we can select which specific details we are looking to extract - either the product details from all categories or the product listing page or the category listing page, etc. Simply designate a start URL, and the scraping job will begin to retrieve data.

Scheduler.

Automation is a crucial part of almost any company. Nowadays, companies are always looking at how to automate the major processes; therefore, increasing efficiency and decreasing costs. When it comes to web data extraction, the Scheduler, available on Web Scraper Cloud, takes care of it.

The scheduler works for any sitemap that has been imported into your Cloud account. All that needs to be done is simply select a specific time or a specific day, and an interval in which you want the sitemap to be automatically launched. It is also possible to change between proxies, drivers, time zones, etc. if needed.

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Once that is set, you do not have to worry about manually scraping the data again. 

However, with changes in the website or any other reasons that are near impossible to foresee, best to also activate the data quality control.

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Here you can adjust the minimum % of fields that must be filled in a column. Once the data is scraped and the minimum is not reached, meaning that something is not working as it is supposed to, an additional notification will be sent, and the risks of not retrieving the data or having incomplete data decreased.

TRANSFORM.

Parser.

Now, when it comes to data transformation, the Parser takes care of data post-processing for you in the simplest and fastest way.

The Parser works as a data transformation tool. When working with bigger bulks of data that are hard to oversee at a glance, it is necessary to keep your data neat and clean.

With the Parser, you are able to:

• Delete columns;
• Delete strings;
• Replace strings;
• Create virtual columns (a column of two or more existing columns);
• And more.

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The Parser takes care of the most necessary data transformation processes that are needed when working with scraped data. Do not waste time removing certain strings manually or deleting columns that won’t be available once you exit, or taking other time-consuming measures if the Parser can take care of all of that and more with just a few clicks!

MAINTAIN/NOTIFY/EXTRACT.

API.

Now, moving to data maintenance - Cloud Scraper offers an API system through which you are able to manage your sitemaps, scraping jobs, and download data. It works as a token/call system that can be accessed on the Cloud Scraper profile individually. 

It is like an information receiver of when a specific scraping job should be launched, when scheduled, or even import a scraping sitemap from your servers into your Cloud Scraper account. Utilise our PHP SDK when developing your application in PHP. The key feature of the API is that it is a way of creating an automated system that, without any help of a person, can launch data extraction in huge volumes.

An example of using an API could be by connecting it to Google Sheets, to, for example, create an automated sheet that updates the retrieved data whenever there are any changes.

API is a time saver for launching thousands of sitemaps without even manually logging into your Cloud Scraper account. Also, it possesses the ability to download data in different formats such as CSV, JSON, and XLSX.

Webhooks.

Webhooks or the “finished scraping job notifications” under the “API” section of Cloud Scraper is a notification system that dials a message to your designated server when a scraping job has been finished - Web Scraper will execute a POST FORM submit with scraping job metadata. No need to log into your Cloud account or designate an API to check if every data extraction process is still going or not. Also, it is possible to add multiple endpoint notification URLs; therefore, Web Scraper can notify multiple servers that a scraping job has completed.

It works as you are required to input an end URL to which our servers will send a message to your designated server about a finished scraping job. It is also possible to add multiple endpoint notification URLs; therefore, Web Scraper can notify multiple servers that a scraping job has finished.

Sitemap Launch.

When you integrate your servers with ours through an API or Webhooks, custom IDs and updated start URL’s will work in your favour. If, for example, your servers utilise different ID recognition, our servers will adjust to yours in a way that your system explains ours your way of ID recognition and our servers will adjust to your conditions of ID recognition. 

That's it!

As demonstrated - the Cloud Scraper takes good care of your data and covers the most crucial processes of scraped data. The extraction, transformation, and maintenance in one place - Cloud Scraper!