What are the most common types of data you can extract with web scraping?

1 Text data

Text data is the most basic and common type of data you can extract with web scraping. Text data includes any textual information that is displayed on a website, such as headlines, paragraphs, captions, labels, links, and metadata. Text data can be useful for various natural language processing tasks, such as sentiment analysis, topic modeling, keyword extraction, and summarization. To extract text data with web scraping, you need to identify the HTML tags and attributes that contain the text you want, and use a web scraping tool or library to parse them and store them in a suitable format, such as CSV, JSON, or XML.

2 Image data

Image data is another common type of data you can extract with web scraping. Image data includes any visual information that is displayed on a website, such as photos, logos, icons, charts, and diagrams. Image data can be useful for various computer vision tasks, such as face recognition, object detection, image classification, and image generation. To extract image data with web scraping, you need to identify the HTML tags and attributes that contain the image source URLs, and use a web scraping tool or library to download them and store them in a suitable format, such as JPG, PNG, or GIF.

3 Table data

Table data is a type of data that is displayed on a website in a tabular format, such as rows and columns. Table data can include any numerical or categorical information that is organized in a table, such as prices, ratings, statistics, and rankings. Table data can be useful for various data analysis and visualization tasks, such as descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and dashboard creation. To extract table data with web scraping, you need to identify the HTML tags and attributes that contain the table elements, such as <table>, <tr>, <td>, and <th>, and use a web scraping tool or library to parse them and store them in a suitable format, such as CSV, JSON, or XML.

4 Form data

Form data is a type of data that is submitted by users on a website through input fields, such as text boxes, drop-down menus, checkboxes, and radio buttons. Form data can include any personal or preference information that users provide on a website, such as names, emails, addresses, and feedback. Form data can be useful for various user research and marketing tasks, such as customer segmentation, lead generation, survey analysis, and email marketing. To extract form data with web scraping, you need to identify the HTML tags and attributes that contain the input elements, such as <form>, <input>, <select>, and <option>, and use a web scraping tool or library to fill them and submit them programmatically, and store the response data in a suitable format, such as CSV, JSON, or XML.

5 JSON data

JSON data is a type of data that is exchanged between a website and a server in a JSON format, which stands for JavaScript Object Notation. JSON data can include any structured or semi-structured information that is used to render or update a website, such as product details, user profiles, comments, and reviews. JSON data can be useful for various data integration and manipulation tasks, such as data extraction, data transformation, data loading, and data cleaning. To extract JSON data with web scraping, you need to identify the URL or endpoint that returns the JSON data, and use a web scraping tool or library to send a request and receive the response, and store the JSON data in a suitable format, such as CSV, JSON, or XML.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?