Scrape it – Save it – Get it

I imagine I’m talking to a load of developers. Which is odd seeing as I’m not a developer. In fact, I decided to lose my coding virginity by riding the ScraperWiki digger! I’m a journalist interested in data as a beat so all I need to do is scrape. All my programming will be done on ScraperWiki, as such this is the only coding home I know. So if you’re new to ScraperWiki and want to make the site a scraping home-away-from-home, here are the basics for scraping, saving and downloading your data:

With these three simple steps you can take advantage of what ScraperWiki has to offer – writing, running and debugging code in an easy to use editor; collaborative coding with chat and user viewing functions; a dashboard with all your scrapers in one place; examples, cheat sheets and documentation; a huge range of libraries at your disposal; a datastore with API callback; and email alerts to let you know when your scrapers break.

So give it a go and let us know what you think!

Source:https://blog.scraperwiki.com/2011/04/scrape-it-save-it-get-it/

Content Scraping Reuses Blog Posts without Permission

What do popular blogs and websites such as Social Media Examiner, Copy Blogger, CNN.com, Mashable, and Type A Parent have in common? No, it’s not traffic and a loyal online community, each was a victim of the content scraping site “BuzzMyFx.” Although most bloggers fall victim to content scrapers at least once, the offending website was such an extreme case the backlash against it was fast and furious. Thanks to the quick action of many angry bloggers, BuzzMyFix was taken down in a matter of days.

If you’re not familiar with content scraping sites and aren’t sure why they’re bad and what you can do if you fall prey, read on. Not knowing what steps you can take to remove your content from a scraping site can mean someone else is profiting from your hard work.

What is content scraping?

Content scraping is when a blog or website pulls in other bloggers’ content without permission, in many cases passing it off as their own. Instead of stocking their sites with unique content, they steal entire blog posts. Some do leave the original authors’ bylines, but there are plenty that don’t provide attribution at all. This is not a good thing at all.

If you don’t care about someone taking your content and putting it on their blogs and websites without your permission, you should. These sites are stealing traffic, search engine rankings, and even advertising revenue from bloggers. Moreover, by ignoring scraping sites you’re giving the message that this practice is OK.

It’s not OK.

How was BuzzMyFx different?

BuzzMyFx was a little different from your usual scrapers. Bloggers didn’t just find their content had been posted on this site, they learned their entire blogs — down to the design and comments — had been cloned. Plus, any bloggers checking to see if their blogs were being cloned immediately found themselves being scraped as well. Dozens, if not hundreds of blogs were affected. However, bloggers didn’t take this incident sitting down. They spread the word and contacted the site’s host en masse. Thanks to their swift action, and the high number of complaints, the site was removed quickly.

How can I tell if my content is being scraped?

Fortunately for content creators, scrapers are a lazy bunch. Because their sites are automated, and they don’t check or read the content being pulled, they don’t take many precautions to ensure the people they scrape from don’t find their sites. In fact, they may not even care. Fortunately, this makes it easy to learn if your content is being stolen.

    Link to your own articles — When you write a blog post and link to other (of your own) blog posts within that post, it’s not only good SEO. You also will get pingbacks whenever someone else steals your content because of your interlinks. You’re alerted when someone links to your content, and when content is published with your links, you’ll get that alert.

    Google Alerts — If your name, blog’s name, or other unique keywords are set up as Google Alerts, you’ll receive an e-mail every time content is published with these keywords.

    Analytics — When people click on your links that are in scraped content, it will show up as referring traffic in your analytics program. You should always check referring traffic so you can thank the referring site owner, but also to make sure no one is stealing your content.

What steps can I take to remove my content from a scraper?

If you find your content is being stolen, know you have several options. First, you’ll need to find out who owns the scraping site. You can find this out by doing a WHOis domain lookup, which will enable you to search for the website’s details, including the name of the webmaster, contact info, and the name of the site’s host.

Keep in mind that sometimes the website’s owner will pay extra to have his or her name kept private, but you will always be able to find the name of the host. Once you have this information, you can take the necessary steps to have your content removed.

    Contact the site’s owner personally: Your first step should always be a polite request to remove your content immediately. Let the website owner know he or she is in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and you will take the necessary steps to report him if he doesn’t comply.

    Contact the site’s host: If you can’t find the name of the person who owns the site, or if he won’t comply with your takedown request, contact the website’s host. You’ll have to prove your content is being stolen. As the host can be held liable for allowing the content theft, it’s in their best interest to contact the website owner and request removal.

    Contact Google: You can contact Google and fill out a form to have them remove the website from their search engines.

    Spread the word: Let all your blogging friends know about content scrapers when you come across them. The more people who take action against content scrapers, the less likely they are to do it again.

Contacting the webmaster with a takedown notice doesn’t have to be an intimidating process, either. The website Plagiarism Today has a wonderful set of stock letters to use to contact webmasters, web hosts, and even Google. All you have to do is insert the necessary information.

Content scrapers and cloners may try to steal your content, but you don’t have to let them. Stand up for what’s yours.

Source: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/content-scraping-reuses-blog-posts-without-permiss.html

Web scraping tutorial

There are three ways to access a website data. One is through a browser, the other is using a API (if the site provides one) and the last by parsing the web pages through code. The last one also known as Web Scraping is a technique of extracting information from websites using specially coded programs.

In this post we will take a quick look at writing a simple scraperusing the simplehtmldom library. But before we continue a word of caution:

Writing screen scrapers and spiders that consume large amounts of bandwidth, guess passwords, grab information from a site and use it somewhere else may well be a violation of someone’s rights and will eventually land you in trouble. Before writing  a screen scraper first see if the website offers an RSS feed or an API for the data you are looking. If not and you have to use a scraper, first check the websites policies regarding automated tools before proceeding.

Now that we have got all the legalities out of the way, lets start with the examples.

1. Installing simplehtmldom.
Simplehtmldom is a PHP library that facilitates the process of creating web scrapers. It is a HTML DOM parser written in PHP5 that let you manipulate HTML in a quick and easy way. It is a wonderful library that does away with the messy details of regular expressions and uses CSS selector style DOM access like those found in jQuery.

First download the library from sourceforge.  Unzip the library in you PHP includes directory or a directory where you will be testing the code.

Writing our first scraper.

Now that we are ready with the tools, lets write our first web scraper. For our initial idea let us see how to grab the sponsored links section from a google search page.

There are three ways to access a website data. One is through a browser, the other is using a API (if the site provides one) and the last by parsing the web pages through code. The last one also known as Web Scraping is a technique of extracting information from websites using specially coded programs.

In this post we will take a quick look at writing a simple scraperusing the simplehtmldom library. But before we continue a word of caution:

Writing screen scrapers and spiders that consume large amounts of bandwidth, guess passwords, grab information from a site and use it somewhere else may well be a violation of someone’s rights and will eventually land you in trouble. Before writing  a screen scraper first see if the website offers an RSS feed or an API for the data you are looking. If not and you have to use a scraper, first check the websites policies regarding automated tools before proceeding.

Source: http://www.codediesel.com/php/web-scraping-in-php-tutorial/

Why scraping and why TheWebMiner?

If you read this blog you are one of two things: you are either interested in web scraping and you have studied this domain for quite a while, or you are just curious about this relatively new field of interest and want to know what it is, how it’s done and especially why. Either way it’s fine!

In case you haven’t googled already this I can tell you that data extraction (or scraping) is a technique in which a computer program extracts data from human-readable output coming from another program (wikipedia). Basically it can collect all the information on a certain subject from certain places. It’s sort of the equivalent of ctrl+f, at the scale of the whole internet. It’s nothing like the search engines that we currently use because it can extract the data in a certain file, as excel, csv (coma separated values) or any other that the buyer wants, and also extracts only the relevant data, only the values that you are interested in.

I hope now that you understand the concept and you are wondering just why would you need such data. Well let’s take the example of an online store, pretty common nowadays, and of course the manager just like any manager wants his business to thrive, so, for that he has to keep up with the other online stores. Now the web scraping takes place: it is very useful for him to have, saved as excels all the competitor’s prices of certain products if not all of them. By this he can maintain a fair pricing policy and always be ahead of his competitors by knowing all of their prices and fluctuations.  Of course the data collecting can also be done manually but this is not effective because we are talking of thousand of products each one having its own page and so on. This is only one example of situation in which scrapping is useful but there are hundreds and each one of them it’s profitable for the company.

By now I’ve talked about what it is and why you should be interested in it, from now on I’m going to explain why you should use thewebminer.com. First of all, it’s easy: you only have to specify what type of data you want and from where and we’ll manage the rest. Throughout the project you will receive first of all an approximation of price, followed by a time approximation. All the time you will be in contact with us so you can find out at any point what is the state of your project. The pricing policy is reasonable and depends on factors like the project size or complexity. For very big projects a discount may be applicable so the total cost be within reason.

Now I believe that thewebminer.com is able to manage with any kind of situation or requirement from users all over the world and to convince you, free samples are available at any project you may have or any uncertainty or doubt.

Source:http://thewebminer.com/blog/2013/07/

Webscraping using readLines and RCurl

There is a massive amount of data available on the web. Some of it is in the form of precompiled, downloadable datasets which are easy to access. But the majority of online data exists as web content such as blogs, news stories and cooking recipes. With precompiled files, accessing the data is fairly straightforward; just download the file, unzip if necessary, and import into R. For “wild” data however, getting the data into an analyzeable format is more difficult. Accessing online data of this sort is sometimes reffered to as “webscraping”. Two R facilities, readLines() from the base package and getURL() from the RCurl package make this task possible.

readLines

For basic webscraping tasks the readLines() function will usually suffice. readLines() allows simple access to webpage source data on non-secure servers. In its simplest form, readLines() takes a single argument – the URL of the web page to be read:

web_page <- readLines("http://www.interestingwebsite.com")

As an example of a (somewhat) practical use of webscraping, imagine a scenario in which we wanted to know the 10 most frequent posters to the R-help listserve for January 2009. Because the listserve is on a secure site (e.g. it has https:// rather than http:// in the URL) we can't easily access the live version with readLines(). So for this example, I've posted a local copy of the list archives on the this site.

One note, by itself readLines() can only acquire the data. You'll need to use grep(), gsub() or equivalents to parse the data and keep what you need.

# Get the page's source
web_page <- readLines("http://www.programmingr.com/jan09rlist.html")
# Pull out the appropriate line
author_lines <- web_page[grep("<I>", web_page)]
# Delete unwanted characters in the lines we pulled out
authors <- gsub("<I>", "", author_lines, fixed = TRUE)
# Present only the ten most frequent posters
author_counts <- sort(table(authors), decreasing = TRUE)
author_counts[1:10]
[webscrape results]


We can see that Gabor Grothendieck was the most frequent poster to R-help in January 2009.

The RCurl package

To get more advanced http features such as POST capabilities and https access, you'll need to use the RCurl package. To do webscraping tasks with the RCurl package use the getURL() function. After the data has been acquired via getURL(), it needs to be restructured and parsed. The htmlTreeParse() function from the XML package is tailored for just this task. Using getURL() we can access a secure site so we can use the live site as an example this time.

# Install the RCurl package if necessary
install.packages("RCurl", dependencies = TRUE)
library("RCurl")
# Install the XML package if necessary
install.packages("XML", dependencies = TRUE)
library("XML")
# Get first quarter archives
jan09 <- getURL("https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2009-January/date.html", ssl.verifypeer = FALSE)
jan09_parsed <- htmlTreeParse(jan09)
# Continue on similar to above
...

For basic webscraping tasks readLines() will be enough and avoids over complicating the task. For more difficult procedures or for tasks requiring other http features getURL() or other functions from the RCurl package may be required. For more information on cURL visit the project page here.

Source: http://www.r-bloggers.com/webscraping-using-readlines-and-rcurl-2/

Screen scrapers: To program or to purchase?

Companies today use screen scraping tools for a variety of purposes, including collecting competitive information, capturing product specs, moving data between legacy and new systems, and keeping inventory or price lists accurate.

Because of their popularity and reputation as being extremely efficient tools for quickly gathering applicable display data, screen scraping tools or browser add-ons are a dime a dozen: some free, some low cost, and some part of a larger solution. Alternatively, you can build your own if you are (or know) a programming whiz. Each tool has its potential pros and cons, however, to keep in mind as you determine which type of tool would best fit your business need.

Program-your-own screen scraper

Pros:

    Using in-house resources doesn't require additional budget

Cons:

    Properly creating scripts to automate screen scraping can take a significant amount of time initially, and continues to take time in order to maintain the process. If, for instance, objects from which you're gathering data move on a web page, the entire process will either need to be re-automated, or someone with programming acumen will have to edit the script every time there is a change.

    It's questionable whether or not this method actually saves time and resources

Free or cheap scrapers

Pros:

    Here again, budget doesn't ever enter the picture, and you can drive the process yourself.

    Some tools take care of at least some of the programming heavy lifting required to screen scrape effectively

Cons:

    Many inexpensive screen scrapers require that you get up to speed on their programming language—a time-consuming process that negates the idea of efficiency that prompted the purchase.

Screen scraping as part of a full automation solution

Pros:

    In the amount of time it takes to perform one data extraction task, you have a completely composed script that the system writes for you

    It's the easiest to use out of all of the options

    Screen scraping is only part of the package; you can leverage automation software to automate nearly any task or process including tasks in Windows, Excel automation, IT processes like uploads, backups, and integrations, and business processes like invoice processing.

    You're likely to get buy-in for other automation projects (and visibility for the efficiency you're introducing to the organization) if you pick a solution with a clear and scalable business purpose, not simply a tool to accomplish a single task.

Cons:

    This option has the highest price tag because of its comprehensive capabilities.

Looking for more information?

Here are some options to dig deeper into screen scraping, and deciding on the right tool for you:

 Watch a couple demos of what screen scraping looks like with an automation solution driving the process.

 Read our web data extraction guide for a complete overview.

 Try screen scraping today by downloading a free trial.

Source: https://www.automationanywhere.com/screen-scrapers

Data Mining Outsourcing in a Better and Unique Approach

Data mining outsourcing services are ideal for clarity in various decision making processes.  It is the ultimate goal of any organization and business to increase on its profits as well as strengthen the bond with its customers. Equipping the business in such a way that it’s very easy to detect frauds and manage risks in a convenient manner is equally important. Volumes of data that are irrelevant or cannot be used when raw needs to be converted to a more useful form.  The data mining outsourcing services can greatly help you to analyze and interpret data in a more diligent way.

This service to reliable, experienced and qualified hands is very important. Your research project or engineering project can be easily and conveniently handled by experienced staff who guarantees you an accuracy level of about 98% and a massive reduction in operating costs. The quality of work is unsurpassed and the presentation is done in a format that is easy and simple for you. The project is done in a very short time alleviating you delays as well as ensuring on-time completion of your projects. To enjoy a successful outsourcing experience, you need to bank on a famous and reliable expertise.

The only time to rely with data mining outsourcing services is when you do not have a reliable, experienced expertise in your business.  Statistics indicate that it’s very easy to lose business intelligence or expose the privacy of the customers through this process. However companies which offer secure outsourcing process are on the increase as a result of massive competition. It’s an opportunity to develop your potential of sourced data and improve your business in all fields.

Data mining potential applications are infinite. However major applications are in the marketing research and scientific projects. It’s done both on large and small quantities of data by experienced staff well known for their best analytical procedures to guarantee you accurate and easy to use information. Data mining outsourcing services are the only perfect way to profitability.

Source:http://www.e-edge.biz/Data_Mining_Outsourcing_in_a_Better_and_Unique_Approach.html