The Ultimate Guide to Web Crawler Services in 2021

Web crawling services have become an indispensable tool for organizations of all sizes looking to harness the power of big data to drive business decisions. Whether it‘s monitoring competitor movements, generating sales leads, or training machine learning models, the insights gleaned from web data can provide a serious competitive advantage.

But extracting data from websites at scale is a complex engineering challenge that requires significant infrastructure and expertise. For most companies, building and maintaining proprietary web crawlers is simply not feasible.

This is where web crawling services come in. These platforms offer a fast, reliable, and cost-effective way to collect structured web data without the technical headaches.

In this guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about web crawler services, including:

• What is a web crawler service and how does it work?
• The benefits and use cases of web crawling services
• How to choose the right web crawling service
• The top web crawling service providers
• Web crawling best practices and trends
• The future of the web data extraction industry

By the end, you‘ll be equipped with the knowledge to leverage web crawling services for your specific data needs. Let‘s dive in!

The Rapid Growth of the Web Data Extraction Industry

The demand for web data has exploded in recent years. As data-driven decision making becomes the norm, companies are hungry for external data to complement their internal information and provide a 360-degree view of their business.

Consider these statistics:

• The global big data and business analytics market is expected to grow to $274 billion by 2022, with a significant portion coming from web scraped data.

• 67% of companies are already integrating external data with internal metrics to get a more complete understanding of their customers and markets.

• The web scraping services market is projected to reach $3.53 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 22.3% from 2020 to 2027.

• Over 40% of companies say web data extraction is a top priority IT investment area.

This rapid growth is fueling innovation in the web data extraction space. Web scraping and crawling service providers are in an arms race to build faster, smarter, and more reliable solutions for gathering data from any corner of the web.

How Do Web Crawler Services Work?

At a high level, web crawler services automatically browse and index websites much like search engines. But rather than just reading the data, they extract and store it in a structured format for easy analysis and use.

Here‘s a simplified view of the process:

1. The user specifies the target websites and data fields to extract (products, prices, contact info, etc.)
2. The web crawler service deploys bots to systematically visit the webpages and identify the relevant data points
3. The extracted data is cleaned, structured, and stored in a database or delivered directly via API
4. The user accesses their scraped web data in their desired format for analysis and use in applications

While this process may sound straightforward, there are many technical challenges that web crawling services must address:

• Website Structure: Every website is different in terms of HTML structure, JavaScript, AJAX, etc. Building a crawler that can parse and extract data accurately from different types of sites is difficult.

• Scale & Speed: Depending on the number of webpages and data fields, web crawling jobs can require visiting millions or even billions of URLs. Doing this quickly enough to get data in a timely manner is a major engineering hurdle.

• Quality Assurance: Websites are constantly changing. Monitoring data quality and adjusting crawlers accordingly is critical to maintain the accuracy and reliability of web data.

• Anti-Bot Measures: Many websites employ CAPTCHAs, login walls, IP blocking, and other measures to prevent bots from accessing and copying their content. Web crawler services must find workarounds.

• Data Structuring: Raw HTML is messy and not useful for analysis. Web crawler services must structure the extracted data into a clean, coherent, and mergeable format to deliver value to users.

Leading web crawler service providers are innovating to address these technical challenges, from building machine learning models to developing smart proxy rotations and everything in between. The goal is to make web data extraction as seamless as possible.

The Benefits of Web Crawling Services

Partnering with a web crawling service provider offers many benefits over trying to build and manage your own data extraction pipeline:

• Ease of Use: Point-and-click interfaces allow users to specify target websites and data fields without writing a line of code. Pre-built crawlers and datasets make getting web data even easier.

• Scalability: Cloud-based web crawling services can quickly scale up and down to meet data volume and speed requirements without worrying about infrastructure.

• Data Quality: Web crawling services have built-in quality assurance processes to validate data accuracy and completeness. Users can trust the data they receive.

• Cost Savings: Developing and maintaining an internal web crawling team is cost prohibitive for most. Outsourcing to experts yields significant cost savings without sacrificing data quality.

• Domain Expertise: Web crawling service providers have years of experience navigating the challenges of extracting data from all corners of the web, including difficult sites.

• Proxy Management: Most web crawling services include a pool of rotating proxies to mask bot activity and prevent IP blocking. This infrastructure is critical for reliable data gathering.

• Flexibility: APIs, cloud integrations, and multiple export options make it easy to feed web data directly into internal databases and applications for seamless use.

When evaluating web crawling services, it‘s important to understand which of these benefits are most important for your specific use case.

Use Cases for Web Crawled Data

The business applications for web scraped data are virtually limitless. Here are a few common use cases:

Price Intelligence

In today‘s hyper-competitive ecommerce landscape, having access to real-time pricing data is critical. Many retailers use web crawling services to automatically monitor competitor prices, promotions, and stock levels to inform dynamic pricing and ensure they aren‘t losing sales to more aggressive offers.

For example, consumer electronics retailer NewEgg was able to increase their price competitiveness by 70% and conversion rates by 80% using web crawled pricing data.

Lead Generation

B2B companies are using web crawling to automate lead generation and build targeted prospect lists. By scraping sites like LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and public business directories, sales teams can capture key details like company size, industry, tech stack, and decision-maker contact info to personalize outreach.

Marketing agency SocialSellinator reported a 200% increase in lead generation efficiency by using web data to qualify prospects and a 4X increase in conversions over generic lists.

Financial Analysis

Web data is becoming an important alternative dataset for investors and financial analysts looking to gain an edge. By tracking metrics like job listings, product reviews, and website traffic from non-traditional sources, web crawling can provide early indicators of a company‘s growth and financial health.

Hedge fund Yottamine Analytics used web scraped data from over 1,000 sources to build machine learning models that generated 28-44% higher returns than traditional investment strategies.

Brand Monitoring

Brands are using web crawling to monitor online conversations and track reputation across social media, forums, news sites, and more. By analyzing web data for sentiment and trends, PR teams can identify potential crises early and adjust messaging accordingly.

Hospitality giant Marriott used web crawling to track 37,000 daily online mentions across 9,000 properties in 127 countries for real-time brand health monitoring during the pandemic.

AI & Machine Learning

Web data is the fuel that powers artificial intelligence. From training natural language processing models to image recognition algorithms, web crawling services provide the large, diverse datasets needed to build accurate AI.

IBM used web scraped data to train its Watson AI to answer complex questions and beat human champions on the TV quiz show Jeopardy!

Competitive Intelligence

Web crawling can reveal a wealth of data on competitor movements, from tracking new product launches to identifying changes in messaging and promotions. This external data provides insights to make more informed decisions.

Adidas used web crawling to monitor competitor product launches, promotions, and pricing to adjust go-to-market strategies and identify opportunities for differentiation.

The value of web data spans industries and functions. If a question can be answered by information on public webpages, web crawling services can help gather those insights at scale.

Choosing the Right Web Crawler Service

With dozens of web crawling solutions on the market, it can be overwhelming to determine which one will deliver the best data for your needs. Here are the key factors to consider:

Crawling Capabilities

Make sure the web crawling service can handle the specific websites you want to target. Some specialize in ecommerce while others are better suited for general business intelligence or social media. Ask for examples of success with similar use cases.

Ease of Use

How easy is it to specify your data requirements and launch crawls? Does it require coding or can non-technical users configure data extraction with a visual interface? Look for providers that offer both fully managed services and self-service options for flexibility.

Data Quality

Data accuracy should be the top priority. Leading web crawling providers invest heavily in quality assurance automation to validate results before delivery. Make sure the provider is transparent about their data cleaning and structuring processes.

Delivery Methods

How do you need to receive the web data? Via API, direct database integrations, cloud drives, or spreadsheet exports? More delivery options will make it easier to feed web data into your existing infrastructure and workflows.

Scheduling & Monitoring

For ongoing data needs, the ability to schedule recurring crawls is critical for keeping data fresh. Make sure the web crawler service has flexible scheduling options and delivers alerts if something goes wrong. Don‘t lose sight of your data.

Proxy Network

Proxies are a must-have for any serious web crawling operation. Without a diverse and reliable proxy pool, bots will quickly get blocked and data collection will grind to a halt. Leading providers offer expansive proxy networks optimized for web crawling.

Compliance

Not all web data is fair game. It‘s critical that your web crawling service takes data compliance seriously and helps you understand the legal implications of your use case. Make sure they offer tools to respect robots.txt and have processes for handling data privacy requirements.

Pricing

Web crawling services are typically priced on data volume, crawling frequency, and/or number of data fields. Watch out for hidden fees like IP proxy costs or overages. For ongoing projects, look for flexible monthly plans that can scale. The ROI of the data should be greater than the cost.

By carefully evaluating web crawling services across these key criteria, you can find the right partner to deliver the data you need to drive your business forward.

Top Web Crawling Service Providers

With the criteria for choosing a web crawling service provider in mind, here‘s a comparison of some of the top vendors in the space:

*Note: Pricing and features are accurate as of June 2021 and subject to change. Check vendor sites for latest details.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but represents a good cross-section of the web crawler service landscape. Each has their own strengths and ideal use cases. The key is to test a few against your specific data requirements to determine the best fit.

Web Crawling Best Practices & Trends

To get the most out of your web crawling service, follow these tips:

• Start with a clear data strategy. Know exactly what data points you need and how you will use them before starting a crawling project. This will save time and money.

• Monitor data quality vigorously. Don‘t assume your web data is perfect. Invest in automated data validation processes and regularly audit samples for accuracy and completeness.

• Feed web data into existing systems. Maximize the value of web data by integrating it directly into your CRM, BI tools, data warehouse, or other business applications for seamless use.

• Leverage machine learning models. Apply AI techniques like sentiment analysis, named entity recognition, and predictive modeling to web data for deeper insights and data-driven decisions.

• Collaborate across teams. Web data is a team sport. Foster cross-functional collaboration between marketing, sales, finance, and IT to uncover new use cases and share insights.

Looking ahead, the future of web crawling services is trending toward:

• No-code solutions that make it easier for non-technical users to leverage web data without developer assistance

• AI-powered crawling that enables smarter, faster data extraction with minimal human intervention

• Real-time streaming of web data into analytics platforms and data pipelines for always-on insights

• Pre-built datasets for common use cases like pricing intelligence and company research to jumpstart analysis

• Compliance automation to navigate GDPR, CCPA, and other regulations as well as respect website terms of service

The web crawling service ecosystem will continue to evolve and innovate to make high quality web data more accessible than ever. By embracing these developments, organizations can gain a serious competitive advantage.

Getting Started with Web Crawling Services

In today‘s digital age, harnessing external web data is no longer a nice-to-have — it‘s a business imperative. Web crawling services remove the technical barriers to entry, making it possible for companies of all sizes and technical maturity to tap into this rich source of market intelligence.

Whether you need data to inform better pricing decisions, identify new leads, or train machine learning models, partnering with the right web crawling service provider is the key to success.

By following the guidelines in this article, carefully evaluating your options, and starting with a clear data strategy, you can unlock a wealth of insights to drive your business forward. The data is out there waiting to be collected — now is the time to tap into it.