Create Scraping Method

[kevinrawal]

Before Starting Progress read this description.

Common Issues in Web Scraping

Web scraping can be a powerful tool for gathering information from websites. However, several challenges may arise during the process:

1. IP Blocking

Websites may block IP addresses that send too many requests in a short period, leading to potential disruptions in the scraping process.

2. CAPTCHAs

CAPTCHAs are security mechanisms that require solving images or logical problems. They are designed to differentiate between human users and bots, making it difficult for scrapers to proceed.

3. Slow Loading Speed

When a website receives too many requests, it may respond slowly or fail to load entirely, which can affect the efficiency of the scraping operation.

4. Dynamic Content

Websites that use AJAX to update content dynamically pose a challenge for scrapers, as the content may not be present in the initial HTML but loaded later through JavaScript.

5. Missing or Inconsistent Data

Scrapers may struggle to interpret web pages as well as humans do. The page's content may appear as a generic data structure called the Document Object Model (DOM), leading to incomplete or inconsistent data collection.

6. Web Pages Change

Web page layouts and content can change frequently, causing the scraper to break if the targeted elements have moved or been renamed in the HTML.

7. Anti-Bot Measures

Websites may employ various anti-bot measures, such as detecting and blocking bots, serving CAPTCHAs, or rate-limiting requests.

Strategies to Overcome Web Scraping Challenges

Here are some strategies that can help mitigate these challenges:

• IP Rotation: Use a pool of IP addresses to rotate requests and avoid getting blocked.
• Solving CAPTCHAs: Implement CAPTCHA-solving services or use browser automation tools that can interact with CAPTCHA challenges.
• Rate Limiting: Respect the website’s rate limits by introducing delays between requests to prevent overwhelming the server.
• Headless Browsers: Use headless browsers like Puppeteer or Selenium to render JavaScript and scrape dynamic content.
• DOM Parsing: Employ robust DOM parsing libraries that can handle complex page structures and adapt to changes.
• Monitoring Website Changes: Continuously monitor changes to the website's structure and update the scraping logic accordingly.
• User-Agent Spoofing: Rotate User-Agent strings to mimic different browsers and avoid detection.

These strategies can help improve the reliability and efficiency of your web scraping efforts.

Tasks

• [ ] #8
• [x] Code must be unit tested

[kevinrawal]

For now, the main objective is to set up the scraping method, ignoring other challenges such as proxy, captcha, etc.