What is the difference between web crawling and web scraping?

Published Time: 5/04/2024

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Reading time : 5 min read

Web crawling and web scraping are two terms commonly used in the process of retrieving data from the web, and although they are related, there are some differences in purpose and implementation.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the concepts, differences, and uses of web crawling and web scraping.

What is web crawling?

Web crawling is the process of using programs or automated tools to systematically browse, index, and retrieve data on the Internet. These programs, often called web crawlers, web spiders or robots, follow a series of links from one web page to another, constantly retrieving and indexing a website's content. Major search engines such as Google and Baidu use web crawlers to build their search index libraries.

What is web scraping?

Web scraping is a specific form of web crawling that focuses on the targeted extraction of specific data from web pages. Through web scraping, users can extract required information from web pages, such as product prices, weather data, news headlines, etc. Web scraping usually involves using a web crawler to scan the HTML code of a web page and obtain the required data by extracting specific tags or patterns.

Difference Between Crawling and Crawling

Although web crawling and web scraping are related to some extent, there are some clear differences between them:

•Purpose of crawling: The main purpose of web crawling is to systematically browse and index content on the Internet to build a search engine index library. Web scraping focuses on purposefully extracting specific data from web pages to meet user needs or specific application requirements.

•Implementation: Web crawling is the process of jumping from one web page to another by following a series of links through a program or automated tool. Web crawling uses a web crawler to scan the HTML code of a web page and obtain the required data by retrieving specific tags or patterns.

•Data processing: During the web crawling process, the crawler usually stores and indexes the entire content of the web page for search engine retrieval. In web scraping, only specific data is extracted and saved, while other content is ignored.

Use cases for web crawling and web scraping

Both web crawling and web scraping have different use cases, depending mainly on their purpose and how they are implemented:

Web crawling use cases

Web crawling is mainly used for index construction of search engines and for website administrators to monitor and manage their websites. Through web crawling, search engines can collect and index large amounts of information on the Internet and provide relevant search results to users. At the same time, website administrators can also use web crawling to check whether the links to the website are valid and whether the page is loading slowly.

Use cases for web scraping

Web scraping is mainly used to extract specific data from web pages to meet user needs or requirements of a specific application.

For example, in the e-commerce world, web scraping can be used to monitor competitor prices, track product sales, and more. In market research, web scraping can be used to collect and analyze information such as consumer opinions, market trends, and more.

In summary, although web crawling and web crawling are different in implementation and purpose, they are both key technologies that play an important role in the process of web data retrieval. Through reasonable application and combination, efficient acquisition and utilization of rich information on the Internet can be achieved.

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What is the difference between web crawling and web scraping?

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