Extraction of data from various web pages is known as web scraping. Web scraping APIs are tools that automate this process and transfer data into the source without any manual effort. The history of web scraping APIs dates back to 2000 when eBay and Salesforce generated their native APIs for availing their data as a piece of open-source information. Read more: salesforce rest api
Here is an article that illustrates this concept in detail along with some of the best web scraping APIs in the trends.
Web Scraping vs Web scraping API
You read a plethora of information on the internet; but, all of it is scattered in tits and bits. What if there was a tool that collected all the information of your interest in one common pool. This is known as web scraping. And, what if there was another automation tool that connected the collected information to its designated workspace. This is known as web scraping API.
The mechanism behind this lies in the concept of HTML, the core structure of websites. Web scraper APIs “parse” through web page’s data to extract information and curate it in a readable format. Text pattern matching, DOM parsing, semantic annotation recognizing using image annotation tools, computer vision web-page analysis, and vertical aggregation are some of the techniques utilized to accomplish web scraping through automated interfaces.
Best Web scraping API
Web scraping APIs are currently helping businesses and organizations in tracking real-time data to evaluate their performance in the market. Some of the best web scraping APIs are listed below.
1. Zen Scrape
Widely known for extracting online data in bulk, Zen Scrape is an appropriate fit for web developers. It harvests data in JSON format via CAPTCHAs and Javascript rendering. It bypasses all kinds of frontend frameworks, programming languages, and also enables geotargeting.
2. Scraping Dog
Largely used by data scientists, Scraping dog is capable of managing thousands of proxies, CAPTCHAs, and browsers in one go. It uses a chrome browser in the headless mode, thus, collecting data in real-time. Its minimum subscription is for $20/month.
3. ScrapeBox
ScrapeBox can be said to be an invisible web scraping API as it is undetectable by all k=formats of websites. It is used to collect huge volumes of information via chrome and Javascript rendering
4. Octoparse
Octoparse is a code-free web scraping API, preferred by cloud users to reserve harvested data. It is known for its efficient IP address rotation that prevents blocking. It is mostly used by non-technical people who need to extract data from numerous sources. The platform is available free of cost with certain limitations.
5. Grepsr
This is an exclusive API that aids in generating web-scraping solutions. It is famous for its lead generation abilities from the finance sector, supply chain, and social media analytics. Its pricing plan begins from $599/month.
The Last Note
Several other APIs like Import.io, wrap-up, and scraping bee. Nowadays, web scraping APIs are gaining huge momentum owing to their contribution to social media statistics analysis, product research, and digital marketing.
