Introduction

The open web is by far the greatest global repository for human knowledge, and there is almost no information that you can’t find through extracting web data. Because web scraping is done by many people of various levels of technical ability and know-how, there are many tools available.
There are web data scraping tools that service everyone from people who don’t want to write any code, to seasoned developers just looking for the best open source solution in their language of choice. As such, there isn’t one single best web scraping tool- it all depends on your needs. Hopefully though, this list of scraping tools has helped you identify the best web data scraping tools and services for your own specific projects or businesses.
WEBSITE DATA AND AISITE

Data Extraction

Web scraping, web harvesting, or web data extraction is data scraping used for extracting data from websites. The web scraping software may directly access the World Wide Web using the HTTP or a web browser. While web scraping can be done manually by a software user, the term typically refers to automated processes implemented using a bot or web crawler. It is a form of copying in which specific data is gathered and copied from the web, typically into a central local database or spreadsheet, for later retrieval or analysis.

Web scraping a web page involves fetching it and extracting from it. Fetching is the downloading of a page (which a browser does when a user views a page). Therefore, web crawling is a main component of web scraping, to fetch pages for later processing. Once fetched, then extraction can take place. The content of a page may be parsed, searched, reformatted, its data copied into a spreadsheet or loaded into a database. Web scrapers typically take something out of a page, to make use of it for another purpose somewhere else. That is where aisite comes in. Our very specific ‘somewhere’ else is an advanced, established and amazing big web builder.

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AI + Website DATA EXTRACTION

Web Scraping

Web Scraping in its simplest form is collecting information from the web. The biggest ‘scrapers’ are the names you use every day, Google, Facebook, your ISP – anything digital that you do or did online. I can download my whole Genetic sequence, I have. It is all being collected which means it’s either getting or will be ‘scraped’ – turned into a dataset and mined. Anything can be a set of data. Most web scraping technologies are designed to scrape pricing information, or stock information. The law remains unclear of whether such ‘scraping’ constitutes trespass. Nonetheless, we are not lawyers, and this practice is not our objective. The next biggest scraping practice is targeted at social media, then financial information such as news, stocks, futures. cryptos etc.
Web scrapers come in two varieties – client side, you install a program to run locally or off a server in a private network, OR, server side – a cloud based scraper. Cloud based, like all great small business software really, is better, and can be initialised from any device (provided you have built it properly), a mobile, tablet or desktop.
There are obvious reasons to collect data – they can be authentic or nefarious. Data is captured from every point forever more. The data capture capability of mankind is now pretty much infinite. Hence the term ‘big data’, or the ‘data deluge’. The power mega organisations like the government and massive tech companies enjoy on a super scale allows them to extract so much more information than we can comprehend. And good for them. It’s going to happen whether we like it or not. If you can’t beat them, join them. At least make use of their tools. They obviously work!
We are not here to rage against the machine. We are here to play our own small part in understanding their techniques and making them easily and fairly available at the Small Business Level (SME’s). The real people level. The same people who have become closer to their machines than ever – everything is connected. Being online is a modern day utility, like water, gas, even money. Now more than ever people want and now need to be online, especially when it comes to business. And easily.
Richard Branson and Elon Musk just flew into space, on spaceships they own. I can download my whole Genetic sequence, in fact, I have ! If we can do that today why can’t upgrading or migrating your existing website be easier.
Why is the bridge between an old website that may still have relevant content, and, a new mobile friendly modern design with access to all the latest tools, so treacherous.
Here is exactly where aisite comes in. Here is where we apply our skills, experience and passion to what we know is a mission critical step in ensuring Small Business makes a smooth and well advised migration in the inevitable event of wanting to upgrade their website. A smooth integration over to your preferred Web Builder, along with everything you had on your old site ready for use in your new site or importantly available for archive or backup.
Data as a Service

DaaS + SaaS

aisite.ai is a DaaS and a SaaS. Our Research & Development has sped ahead, allowing us to release our first public version.

Objective

We have been in the digital agency business for almost 20 years. But we are still young ! We have a vision and it’s super simple – upgrade your website to the latest modern design of your choice with the ability to add all of the latest tools – at the push of a button.
For example : An Accountancy firm has a team of 20. Their website is, let’s call it ‘suburban’. The team doesn’t much care for it but everyone knows you need to look slick and up to date online. Everyone has some tool in mind that would help them do their job, if they could just get it integrated. Usually the need for a website upgrade is universal and well known in businesses. Usually, also, the thought of this process is frightening. Perhaps they have been through it before. A long time ago when it cost a lot and took a lot more time and bs. Maybe they have a digital agency which charges them what seems like too much. Maybe they just don’t have simple access and control anymore. For whatever reason, website upgrades are happening. Every hour. And more are being planned.
We want to build a way where we can click a button and AI will do 95% of the work of a digital team, in terms of upgrading an existing website. And we want to be able to offer this service for free. We are the missing link between your old website and everything on this wishlist. Only a big part of that wishlist already exists. Why rebuild that ! It’s done, done well, and getting better every day. I am of course talking about the big Web Builders, WordPress, Wix, Weebly. Squarespace and their cohort. These are amazing systems.
The ONLY problem is once you find the one that has all the features you think you need and many you just want, you have to start from scratch. We figured out we can use AI to scan your old website and ingest it into your platform of choice. So you get to say Wix if that is what you want to try, you run WebsiteScraper.io selecting the WIX package.

aisite.ai will generate the perfectly fitting package for your WIX space. So when you log in you will be able to import everything. If WIX works with us, everything from your old website will be transported and arranged as perfectly as a machine learning tool can get to, automatically into your shiny new WIX site when you log in next.

Product Direction

The problem is that there is no easy way for a business to upgrade their website easily, quickly and cheaply. There are many many businesses that want to upgrade and would if they could easily start from where they are now. Better yet, imagine being able to generate a DEMO of a small business website UP FRONT. Not start from scratch. Someone, or something needs to set them up. Otherwise they give up – quickly. Abandonment.
Efficiency – Redesigning or upgrading the functionality of an old website requires too much time and effort resulting in high costs, wasted time and frustration.
Technical – DIY Website Builders abound. And they are amazing, and have all the plugins, they provide the whole ecosystem. It’s just about choosing the right one for your needs
Competition – There are enough established and amazing big DIY Website Builders. They are all special in their own ways. They have a way of engaging stale clients and attractring new ones by making a feature like WebsiteScraper.io. It seems obvious. Why haven’t they. Well, because it is actually really hard. And anyone who has tried has found this out the hard way.
aisite-logo-white-new
In terms of aisite its dream is to automate the migration of SME websites utilising a variety of unique AI and ML techniques and algorithms developed over 3 years from a foundation of 20 years digital agency experience. Our technology does not exist in the marketplace today. Our techniques include using a variety of Machine Learning Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) techniques, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computer Vision techniques and Proprietary Algorithms.
In order to offer this entire journey we realised we would need to integrate into an established system, or, build one out ourselves. We know these systems, we know how good they are. To entertain this approach, and doing it fast, would be insane! Well for a small team short of a few hundred million dollars definitely no chance. And even if you could, why would you, what a waste of resources that would be. These guys are growing so fast, and they are so busy, because they have already built great systems. What is a smoother pathway into them? Where is the greatest pain point for the user/s today?
Having worked 20 years basically in putting people in businesses, together with systems that me and my team designed and built – I say all of this from a solid background with above average technical knowledge, interest and actual successful commercial practice in this field.
And we are not yet talking about eCommerce sites. For now our focus is on informational websites, small businesses, services and similar. They are actually harder than eCommerce websites. Anyone with good eCommerce data presents in a very normalised way. Products and all of their related features have structure. They are structured data sets. The same web builders that have all the conceivable plugins you could imagine. It should be like Lego. Well it IS like Lego, that’s the beauty. The out of date or ‘special’ website is generally an unstructured animal. Why can’t we get AI to generate working structured data, so that we can launch or speed up in this torrential digital river of advantage and opportunity. The platforms offer everything a business needs at the press of a button and small price.

Data Wrangling

A data wrangler (USA derived) is basically anyone working with data. That could be anyone on Earth really. In our context more like a farmer. The occupation is also called munging. These terms are both USA derivatives. We care little for the official title if there is one. We are most interested in the I/O first, and then the upgrade of the website.
  • Discovery / Understanding where the data is and what is fair game.
  • Extraction / Teaching a computer to politely take a copy of the pages, read the code, have a good look around.
  • Structuring / Organising the data, it is of least computational power when it is unstructured. Cleaning / There are a lot of bloated websites. There is so much unnecessary code in old sites, even new ones.
  • Enriching / Here is where AI comes in strongest. Taking what is already there and interpreting it and presenting back in a usable human way.
  • Validation / Check the consistency of the data against validation rules, make it’s ready for the next destination.
  • Export / Prepare the restructured data to move upstream. Into new interoperable software platforms and to infinity and beyond….

Ethical Scraping

We all scrape web data. Well, those of us who work with data do. Data scientists, marketers, data journalists, analysts, hackers, researchers, search engines, marketing companies, the data curious, and so many more.
Throughout our development we have always paid heavy regard to what is ethically reasonable and what is not. The law in regards to scraping web data is complicated and will one day see reforms but that is probably a very long time away. It’s not that no one is thinking, or writing, about the ethics of scraping, or harvesting, but rather that both those scraping and those being scraped can’t agree on basic principles. It’s a well-trodden path or arguments and precedents and confusion.
Being in the industry so long we have been on both sides of this coin. We scrape data mostly for personal, commercial and above all research projects, but we have employed it as a form of data collection, targeting assets clients assert they have legal rights too.
On the other side, we have always battled with bots when it comes to analytics, and protecting our clients data.
In terms of making the efforts of WebsiteScraper.io ethical we adhere to the following principles.
  • If a target has a public API that provides the data we need we will use it and avoid scraping.
  • We will always provide a User Agent string that makes our intentions clear and provides a way for you to contact us with any concerns.
  • We request data at a reasonable rate. We strive to never be detected of characterised a DDoS attack, because we are not.
  • We will only store the data we absolutely need from our target. For example - If all we need is OpenGraph meta-data, that is all we will harvest.
  • We will respect any content we do store.
  • We will NEVER pass off harvested data as our own.
  • We will always look to create value for your quest to migrate.
  • If a target has a nofollow, or a robots.txt, we will respect that.
  • We will ignore orphan pages.
Our Policy ( for now) If it is publicly available and a human can see it, then the data is public domain. Global Rules This is by no means comprehensive but shows some examples of organisations and practices that seek to define what is ethical and what is not in the field of data scraping. You have SOPA on one hand and STOP CENSORSHIP Then there is technical and non-technical censorship. SOPA – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act on the other side…. Here is the whole history of internet censorship better than we could ever write it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship

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