How to build a web scraper?

Scrapers automatically complete tasks related to collection of information on the Internet. If you need a scraper for your work, there are several ways to get it:

• To create a scraper yourself. If you have a considerable experience in scraper development, this option is appropriate for you. Moreover, there are loads of articles about scraper developing on the Internet. But if you don’t have enough experience and skills, you could waste your time and don’t make expected progress.
• To order a scraper. This option has its pitfalls as well, since it’s not that easy to find a good developer, who is good at scraper building. Besides, developing of a new scraper may take quite some time.
• To buy an off-the-shelf scraper. The best option is to buy a ready for use scraper. The only thing you need to do is just tweak a scraper for a particular task. A cross-functional scraper is always able to deal with it. Datacol is one of such scrapers. If you choose buying a ready for use scraper, you will not have to wait a long time, as in the case of development from nothing. Further adjustment of an off-the-shelf scraper is a matter of a few minutes.

Drawbacks of building of a scraper yourself

If you need a scraper, you are most likely to think about creating it yourself. But keep in mind that you may face such difficulties:

• Development requires a considerable amount of time.
• If a developer does not have enough experience, a scraper may not be able to handle 100% of essential tasks.
• Such scraper may not be a multi-task one. Usually, scrapers are built for one particular case, but you may need to collect data from other resources as well. Obviously, with good experience you can write another scraper, but still you need additional time.

So, what’s better: scraper development or purchase of an off-the-shelf tool?

Of course, both of options are possible. But for most cases buying of a ready for use scraper is more reasonable decision. Moreover, you can test a scraper before the purchase in order to find out whether it is able to handle your tasks or not. You can test the Datacol scraper after downloading the DEMO version at this link.