Common Myths About Web Scraping

Web scraping has grown in use over the years. These days, so many people are using it, either for personal use or for their business. Every day, people are discovering more and more uses of web scraping and how it can make their life easier, improve their business, and other activities.

With the growth of the use of web scraping, discussions surrounding it have also increased too. As with almost everything, most of these discussions convey myths or things that are not true. These myths have even dissuaded people from using web scraping in any form.

For us at Zenscrape, we understand how some of these myths discourage people from investing in web scraping, as we know what is true. So we will be going over some of the popular myths about web scraping and revealing the real truths.

1. Web Scraping is Illegal

This has to be the biggest myth about web scraping and often featured in discussions about the subject. People often wonder how legal it is to use web scraping tools to gain info from a website. Unfortunately, most of these people just conclude, wrongly, that web scraping must be illegal.

The truth is, web scraping is neither here nor there. The most important thing, however, is its use. What are you using the information you gain for? Is it to improve your site? The good of a thing depends on its use, and so it is with web scraping.

As with any information you gain through whatever means, you have to be careful how you implement it so that you do not infringe rights like intellectual property or copyright. A good way to begin is to first seek permission from the site you want to scrape from. This makes them aware that you want to take information from them. But if you cannot do that, try to put every piece of information you take into good use.

While it is true that extracting personal information through web scraping is fraught with legal and ethical issues, some techniques can potentially bypass simple barriers. Backconnect proxies, for instance, allow scrapers to rotate IP addresses automatically, reducing the risk of getting blocked by websites. This makes them a favored tool among those trying to access data from sites that implement IP-based access restrictions or rate limiting.

However, the use of such proxies does not negate the importance of adhering to legal standards and respecting privacy norms. It’s crucial for users of backconnect proxies and other scraping technologies to ensure that their activities comply with all relevant data protection laws, which strictly regulate the harvesting of personal data.

2. Ability to Scrape Emails and Personal Details

Another misconstrued view about web scraping is that one can easily use it to scrape the personal details like phone numbers, emails, and addresses of people from a site. This is not true as sites do not just leave such details lying around in the first place, as they are protected in a way. Besides that, some sites do not just allow you source for personal details on them, making it almost impossible for you to do so.

3. Coding is a Required Skill

Most people just assume that because something deals with the internet, then you must be able to code. And so many people shy away from web scraping because they do not know how to code. This is not true as anyone can use web scraping tools without the knowledge of coding. But if you still feel it is a big thing to handle, then you can use the option of many companies out there to take care of your web scraping needs. That’s what we do at Zenscrape.

4. You Can Scrape Any Web Page

This is another myth surrounding web scraping. You can’t just scrape any page or website you visit. This is because some websites have rules that help protect the data in it. Some sites even have a type of protection that prevents you from scraping from them, such as sites with copyright protection.

A web scraping bot needs to pay attention to the rules on a site before engaging in scraping as it could land the scraper in trouble. Some information is protected for a reason and violating can be very bad with certain consequences.

5. Web Scraping is Web Crawling

Some people, oftentimes, use the term web scraping and web crawling interchangeably, thinking they mean the same thing. While both processes make use of the data on a web page, they do not use it for the same function. Web crawling deals with indexing or arranging the information on a page, providing links. This is mostly used by search engine operators. But web scraping deals with extracting data from a page.

Web scraping is used to extract data from websites across various industries. It enables price monitoring, market research, and lead generation. Businesses use it for dynamic pricing, understanding market trends, and gathering contact details for potential customers. It’s also applied in real estate to compile listings, in media for aggregating news content, and in SEO to monitor competitive strategies.

Additionally, it facilitates social media analysis, academic research, and job board scraping for recruitment insights. Travel agencies scrape for deals and reviews to enhance service offerings. However, it’s crucial to perform web scraping ethically and legally, adhering to data privacy laws and website policies.

It is common for things to be misunderstood, especially when people are not very familiar with them. That is why it is necessary to carry out research and properly learn about things rather than just listening to people’s opinions on them.