Web Scraping Myths Debunked–No More Excuses

Myths are rooted in years of misconception. And with a somewhat taboo topic like web scraping, it's easy to jump on the bandwagon without knowing the facts.

(In our free handbook, we share all the basics about the concept, process, and use cases of web scraping in a legal capacity, so you can stop holding back.)

Now, if we speak about "myths," we honestly just speak of excuses for not working smarter. With AI bursting at the seams—used for a myriad of tedious and complex tasks—there’s no reason scraping shouldn’t be on your radar too! (Even better, try using them together to achieve the best possible outcome.)?

Let’s unpack five common "myths" to put you at ease.

?? Myth #1: Web scraping is unethical and illegal

Scraping publicly available data is 100% legal.?

The ethics come down to the type of data you're scraping and the method or extraction process used to gather data. Here are the best practices to follow.

?? Myth #2: You need to code—so it's only for developers

Generally speaking, web scraping is a tricky topic, and it does require a level of technical implementation and knowledge regardless of the scraper you choose. However, APIs simplify scraping in a way that minimizes the need for coding.

?? Myth #3: Web scraping is exactly the same as web crawling

It's important to note that these are two different concepts. Web crawling is indexing; how bots crawl your URLs and index them. Web scraping, however, is a data extraction process for a broad spectrum of industries. Another confusion is data mining, so we have created a table to show you the differences.?

?? Myth #4: It's too expensive for SMB businesses

This depends on the tool and the credit system used. With ScraperAPI, for example, all pricing plans start with 5,000 free API credits for 7-days.

Thereafter, we have a variety of affordable options.

If you think of the return on investment, it’s a no-brainer.

?? Myth #5: It's time-consuming and results aren't guaranteed

If you’ve done the legwork to avoid being blocked, and you’re following best practices, you shouldn’t have any issues. Requests take seconds to return, but when you’re dealing with large volumes of data, it can cause delays. In a situation like this, you must resort to a new method, async, for example.

Here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to scrape large volumes of data, simultaneously, no matter how complex the sites’ anti-scraping systems are.

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ScraperAPI has an average success rate of 98%.

We route your requests through proxy pools with over 40 million proxies and retries requests for up to 60 seconds to get a successful response. However, some of your requests will fail, and we will not charge you for failed requests.

We've helped 10,000+ companies without getting blocked. Whether you're a startup or a Fortune 500 company, we'll help you get big, scalable insights.

Start FREE; the first 5,000 API credits are on us.

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Your ScraperAPI Team! ??