{"id":62,"date":"2022-01-21T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-21T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/ukwebgeekz.com\/?p=62"},"modified":"2022-01-21T16:09:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-21T16:09:20","slug":"custom-extraction-screaming-frog","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.ukwebgeekz.com\/blog\/custom-extraction-screaming-frog\/","title":{"rendered":"Custom Extraction Methods & Screaming Frog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It should not need saying that a website is essential<\/a> these days for any business to succeed. With literally billions of potential customers online, businesses simply can\u2019t afford to miss out. In 2018, global \u2018e-retail\u2019 sales totalled something in the region of $2.8 trillion. The projected figure for 2021 is nearer to $4.8 trillion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Competition for online business is fierce, as you might expect. The companies with the best SEO strategies<\/a> are clearly going to win. Those who don\u2019t invest in SEO<\/a>, or who neglect their websites, will suffer \u2013 it\u2019s as simple as that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You might have excellent SEO<\/a> and a great website. But how do you give your business the edge over your competition? There are many tools and tricks out there to boost your chances and help you maximise opportunities, and custom extraction is one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First of all, let\u2019s think back to the average office about fifty years ago. Immediately, you\u2019d note the absence of computers in most offices, and where they were present they weren\u2019t exactly \u2018user friendly\u2019 or powerful \u2013 compared with today\u2019s models. When data was required, it would mostly be left to humans to gather. It was often a painstaking, laborious, and thankless task. And then there is the fact of \u2018human error\u2019. Yes, reports were made, and frequently made well. But it took time and effort that often exceeded its usefulness. As time went on, and more data became available, it became less worthwhile. The internet wasn\u2019t around at the time, so you couldn\u2019t dive in to extract the data you required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jump forward to today, and we have information at our fingertips 24 hours a day. In fact, we have vast, overwhelming amounts of information and data. In a sense, we are faced with a similar problem to our counterparts of half a century ago; sifting through masses of data to find anything of value is not a good use of our time. And people still make mistakes at times. This is where custom extraction can be a useful tool, especially Screaming Frog which is our favorite. Special software is put into action that scours websites and grabs the data you need. It then saves it in a file for you to analyse and present in a range of formats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this can save you resources, time, and money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re not familiar with the technical terms, it can all get a bit confusing. Basically, all websites are built using a code called HTML. Other codes are used in the design and presentation, but HTML is the basic framework that all internet browsers recognise. If you were to look at the actual code for a website, you might be amazed at just how much is there. If you were to search through it to find a specific bit of information, it could take a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re not familiar with the technical terms, it can all get a bit confusing. Basically, all websites are built using a code called HTML. Other codes are used in the design and presentation, but HTML is the basic framework that all internet browsers recognise. If you were to look at the actual code for a website, you might be amazed at just how much is there. If you were to search through it to find a specific bit of information, it could take a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using a \u2018web scraper\u2019 you can find that information quickly. These scrapers are also sometimes referred to as \u2018bots\u2019, \u2018spiders\u2019, or \u2018spiderbots\u2019 and are the same type of tools used by search engines to scour the millions of pages that make up the internet in order to index relevant sites for any particular search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using a \u2018web scraper\u2019 you can find that information quickly. These scrapers are also sometimes referred to as \u2018bots\u2019, \u2018spiders\u2019, or \u2018spiderbots\u2019 and are the same type of tools used by search engines to scour the millions of pages that make up the internet in order to index relevant sites for any particular search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Web data extraction is growing in popularity as businesses are waking up to its importance. Custom data extraction takes this a step further by speeding up the process and automating it. You can download software like Screaming Frog<\/a> to perform this for you, set the required parameters, and wait for the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And these results can seriously boost your company\u2019s performance or replace a time consuming method with a fast efficient data export.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of large online stores not only sell their own products but those of small or large suppliers that may not have high tech logistics or even a stock list at all. This can be a problem with customers on your site buying a product that you then cannot fulfill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You need to have a little bit of code knowledge specifically HTML & CSS but it really is quite simple. Although the code\/method you use might differ slightly on different websites due to the structure or validity of the code, or indeed because its behind a login\/wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat is Custom Extraction?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How does it work?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
An example of custom extraction for stock checks.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
So how can we fix this?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n