Web Scraping from 0 to hero: kickstart your career in web scraping
How to start a career in web scraping?
During this course “Web Scraping from 0 to Hero” we’ve seen different technical aspects of web scraping, from tutorials for using Scrapy and Playwright to understanding why a scraper is blocking our scraper.
As web data is more requested than ever due to the AI frenzy we’re living in today, it could be a good moment to kickstart your career as a web scraping professional, so today we’re seeing what’s needed by applying what we’ve seen in the past lessons of the course.
Understand the Fundamentals
Before diving into the technical aspects, it's crucial to understand the foundational concepts of web scraping. This includes knowledge of how the web works, the structure of web pages, and the ethical considerations involved.
Ethical and legal considerations
Just because you can scrape data, this doesn’t mean you should do it. Web scraping, just like every tool, can be used legally or illegally. Understanding these boundaries is key for your career as a web scraping professional.
In this article, written by Sanaea Daruwalla, Chief Legal & People Officer at Zyte, there’s a great introduction to what’s legal to do and what is not.
The Structure of websites
Web pages are built using HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and often styled with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). JavaScript may also be used to enhance interactivity. Internal APIs are often used for retrieving data from the backend. Determine if there’s any antibot installed on the website and, if so, how to approach it.
Understanding the smartest way to get the data we need and estimating the challenges to overcome is key to choosing the right tool for your web scraping projects.
In this article, you can see the checklist to complete before starting a web scraping project.
Dive in the sea of tools for web scraping
Once we understand what’s the tech stack of a website and if there’s any anti-bot installed, we have a variety of commercial tools we can use to scrape it.
Starting from proxies, it’s key to understand when they’re needed and what kind of proxy suits best for the website.
In this article, we explored the world of proxies for web scraping.
But we’ve also got the so-called “unblockers”, anti-detect browsers, without considering all the emerging open-source tools that we can find on GitHub.
Being constantly informed about these tools is key for your career and The Web Scraping Club is here to help. So if you know anyone who’s working in the web scraping industry and is not reading this newsletter, share it with him.
Acquire Technical Skills
To become a web scraping professional, you need to master several technical skills. These include programming, understanding web technologies, and proficiency with web scraping tools and libraries.
Programming Languages
Python is the most commonly used language for web scraping due to its simplicity and the vast array of libraries available. Key libraries include:
BeautifulSoup: For parsing HTML and XML documents.
Scrapy: A powerful and flexible web scraping framework.
Selenium: For web scraping that requires interacting with JavaScript-rendered content.
Playwright: the newest browser automation tool used for scraping websites protected with anti-bots.
Some of these tools are also available for other languages like Node.js, which is the other main language that is actually used for scraping.
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
A deep understanding of HTML and CSS is essential for identifying and extracting the right data. Familiarity with JavaScript is also necessary, particularly when dealing with dynamically loaded content. In fact, writing selectors for scrapers implies an understanding of the CSS code and of the HTML code, as we’ve seen in this article.
Database Management
Knowledge of databases such as SQL or NoSQL (e.g., MongoDB) is important for storing and managing the scraped data efficiently, as we’ve seen from the last course lesson.
Gain Practical Experience
Hands-on experience is vital in honing your web scraping skills. Start with small projects and gradually tackle more complex tasks.
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Practice Projects
Begin with straightforward projects such as scraping static websites or public datasets. Examples include:
Scraping product prices from e-commerce websites.
Extracting article titles and publication dates from news websites.
While doing so, you can also consider monetizing these projects. You can have a look at Upwork or other freelance tasks platforms, Databoutique.com for selling datasets, or the Apify marketplace for selling your scraper.
Develop a Professional Portfolio
A robust portfolio is crucial for showcasing your expertise to potential employers or clients. Include diverse projects that demonstrate your ability to handle various scraping tasks and data management challenges.
This can be done by publishing your GitHub repositories for your projects, documenting them, and creating a personal brand for your activity.
Stay Updated with Industry Trends
The field of web scraping is constantly evolving. Staying updated with the latest tools, techniques, and legal developments is essential for maintaining your edge as a professional.
5.1. Continuous Learning
Engage in continuous learning through online courses, webinars, and reading industry blogs and publications. Websites like Coursera, Udemy, and Medium are excellent resources for staying current with the latest trends and best practices.
Here are some resources I suggest to follow:
Hacker News, filtered for the scraping keyword, so you won’t miss any post that could not reach the first page.
The webscraping subreddit, where sometimes any interesting post pops up
The Web Scraping Wiki, a new resource for web scraping professionals
The Antoine Vastel blog, to know more about advanced scraping and anti-bot
5.2. Network with Professionals
Networking with other web scraping professionals can provide insights into new opportunities, tools, and techniques. Attend industry conferences, join professional groups, and participate in online communities.
Here are some Discord servers you could not miss: