Data extraction from search engine results can get challenging at times, but it is worth the effort. Businesses use search engine data to perform search engine optimization, create marketing techniques, and develop better products. There are so many ways of performing this task, and web scraping is one of them. Web scraping, or web data extraction, is a process of gathering data from websites for further processing and analysis to form an effective business plan. It uses high-end tools to help businesses take a step forward and make well-informed decisions.
In this post, we are going to provide an overview of how to scrape search engine data easily and reliably. But first, get an idea of why it is important to scrape public data from search engines and what difficulties come while carrying out this process.
Why Scrape Search Engines
Search engine scraping is an automated web scraping process that extracts public data from a particular search query or search engine results page (SERP), such as URLs, titles, descriptions, images, and other information from search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing. This is a specific form of web scraping dedicated to search engines only. It has been seen to help companies increase their site ranking and check how visible their products or services are than their competitors.
Here are the three main reasons why scraping search engines is important for businesses:
- Competitor Monitoring – Many businesses use search engine scraping techniques to understand what their competitors are up to. Scraping through their pages on search engines may provide you with massive information, like social media activities, digital marketing strategies, and bestseller items. For instance, many eCommerce brands scrape Amazon for pricing information to sell their products at similar prices.
- Search Engine Optimization – When it comes to content optimization, you may need to know the most commonly used keywords or how well your rivals rank with SEO. SERPs are loaded with data, including titles, descriptions, keywords, and more, and can be helpful in making your business successful.
- Brand Protection – Building a brand is not an easy task; therefore, safeguarding your brand’s reputation is important. Search engine scraping is extremely useful in this case as it helps brands identify competitors using their elements or content without their consent. Stock photo websites like Getty use scraping tools to find such people who do not pay for their images.
Difficulties in Scraping Search Engines
Scraping search engine data can be highly advantageous for businesses of all kinds. However, it also comes with challenges that can make the entire process complex. In the last few years, search engines have made strict changes to their detection systems. This has made it harder to scrape their data.
Search engines can identify the user’s IP address, and whenever web scrapers send several requests simultaneously to servers from the same IP, it gets blocked. CAPTCHA is another popular security measure. When a system believes a user is a bot, CAPTCHA causes IP blocks as a result.
Also, it is possible to scrape search engines without any significant legal concern since courts have ruled that the information is public domain. However, search engines, like Google, try to keep the traffic safe from malicious scrapers and often block automated scraping activity. This becomes problematic, especially for scraping multiple pages or frequently from a search engine. Therefore, scraping search engines is legal as long as no laws about the source data are violated.
How to Scrape Public Search Engine Data
There are certain methods to extract publicly available data from search engines that can prove to be helpful. To scrape public search engine data, do the following:
- Use proxies – Proxy servers can help access geo-blocked content and reduce the chances of getting blocked. Proxies assign users different IP addresses every time, making IP detection quite difficult.
- Rotate IP addresses – Scraping search engines with the same IP continuously is highly not recommended. Consider IP rotation for your scraping process to avoid getting tracked and blocked.
- Manage HTTP cookies – It is better to disable HTTP cookies or clear them after changing the IP address.
- Optimize the scraping process – Extracting massive amounts of data simultaneously can lead to IP blocks. Try to follow different scraping techniques, such as not loading servers with several requests at the same time.
- Opt for Scraper APIs – Using web scraper APIs, like Google Scraper API, can be helpful in extracting data from search engines. APIs come with the ability to rotate proxies, bypass CAPTCHAs, and avoid geo-blocking. Google Scraper API lets you scrape Google SERPs and retrieve organic and paid results, prices, ads, queries, and reviews, with an API call. View the website of Oxylabs to learn more about an advanced Google Scraper API.
Summary
Scraping public data from search engines is beneficial for various business purposes, but obtaining the required information has many challenges. Today, search engines have implemented highly sophisticated ways of tracking and blocking scraping tools, indicating that more actions must be taken to avoid getting blocked. With the effective methods mentioned above, you can successfully scrape data for your business by replicating human behavior as closely as possible.
Leave a Reply