Among many available data sources, websites like Amazon stand out as a prime place for gathering information, including product listings, user reviews, and overall market insights. According to data, over 82% of e-commerce companies use web scraping to collect publicly available external information. But how easy is it for businesses to tap into the data goldmine?
There are many challenges regarding web scraping, and the main one is that websites, including giants like Amazon, have implemented rigorous security measures to protect their content from automated data collection. But Proxyway’s research revealed that newly emerging technologies allow users to retrieve public data from Amazon with around a 99 percent success rate.
Websites Scramble to Gate Publicly Available Data
The online e-commerce market has been growing every year and is projected to reach USD 11.60 billion by 2030. Web scraping provides access to large amounts of e-commerce data, so businesses can tap into market trends, consumer preferences, and competitor strategies. However, getting that information is not that simple nowadays.
Web owners apply protection mechanisms primarily to maintain the website’s performance and to protect its content from bad bot activities, which constitute around 30 percent of the web traffic. As a result, this also affects the good web scraping practices like scraping off-peak hours and adhering to the website’s scraping guidelines.
The range of strategies e-commerce websites use varies depending on the website. Amazon, for example, applies in-house CAPTCHA and returns empty 200-coded responses. The method aims to trick bots into believing that their scraping attempts were successful when, in reality, no data is returned.
Overall, web scraping is surrounded by many misconceptions, especially regarding legality, which creates a distorted image of automated data collection. But no law exists that forbids collecting publicly available data, though there are some grey areas that need to be taken into consideration while web scraping.
Growing Demand for Custom Web Scraping Solutions
Web scraping is getting more challenging and traditional tools are not always enough. For example, a Python script without the right type of proxy – a server that changes the user’s IP address and perceived location – will fail to bring successful results from well-protected targets like Amazon. Of course, there are other factors that impact the operation’s success: browser fingerprints, the scraper’s skills, or how well the software is maintained.
To address these challenges, major proxy and web scraping infrastructure providers created a new service called proxy-based API, otherwise called web unblocker. The technology aims to unblock challenging websites when collecting publicly available data.
A proxy API supplements proxy servers with web scraper capabilities. It handles CAPTCHAs and other protection methods by selecting the right proxy type and applying parameters for the user’s online identity.
The novelty of such services requires testing and analysis to determine whether the new technology is worth the hype and the marketed performance numbers are real. In response to this, Proxyway – a leading researcher of proxies and web scraping infrastructure – looked at the five major companies that take the lion’s share of the market. The tests were run with real targets like Amazon, Google, and Walmart throughout a week and each target received around 1,800 requests.
The research showed that the participants managed to open protected websites over 90% of the time. This underscores the potential of proxy-based APIs in overcoming challenges posed by well-protected platforms.
Summing Up
Web scraping presents challenges and opportunities for businesses that want to leverage e-commerce data. While websites use various anti-bot systems to gate publicly available data, the web scraping industry is also moving forward.
Proxy-based APIs are a promising technology for overcoming web scraping roadblocks. They allow companies to tap into market trends and consumer behavior without getting blocked and gain a competitive edge.
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