Monday 30 September 2013

Web Scraper Shortcode WordPress Plugin Review

This short post is on the WP-plugin called Web Scraper Shortcode, that enables one to retrieve a portion of a web page or a whole page and insert it directly into a post. This plugin might be used for getting fresh data or images from web pages for your WordPress driven page without even visiting it. More scraping plugins and sowtware you can find in here.

To install it in WordPress go to Plugins -> Add New.
Usage

The plugin scrapes the page content and applies parameters to this scraped page if specified. To use the plugin just insert the

[web-scraper ]

shortcode into the HTML view of the WordPress page where you want to display the excerpts of a page or the whole page. The parameters are as follows:

    url (self explanatory)
    element – the dom navigation element notation, similar to XPath.
    limit – the maximum number of elements to be scraped and inserted if the element notation points to several of them (like elements of the same class).

The use of the plugin is of the dom (Data Object Model) notation, where consecutive dom nodes are stated like node1.node2; for example: element = ‘div.img’. The specific element scrape goes thru ‘#notation’. Example: if you want to scrape several ‘div’ elements of the class ‘red’ (<div class=’red’>…<div>), you need to specify the element attribute this way: element = ‘div#red’.
How to find DOM notation?

But for inexperienced users, how is it possible to find the dom notation of the desired element(s) from the web page? Web Developer Tools are a handy means for this. I would refer you to this paragraph on how to invoke Web Developer Tools in the browser (Google Chrome) and select a single page element to inspect it. As you select it with the ‘loupe’ tool, on the bottom line you’ll see the blue box with the element’s dom notation:


The plugin content

As one who works with web scraping, I was curious about  the means that the plugin uses for scraping. As I looked at the plugin code, it turned out that the plugin acquires a web page through ‘simple_html_dom‘ class:

    require_once(‘simple_html_dom.php’);
    $html = file_get_html($url);
    then the code performs iterations over the designated elements with the set limit

Pitfalls

    Be careful if you put two or more [web-scraper] shortcodes on your website, since downloading other pages will drastically slow the page load speed. Even if you want only a small element, the PHP engine first loads the whole page and then iterates over its elements.
    You need to remember that many pictures on the web are indicated by shortened URLs. So when such an image gets extracted it might be visible to you in this way: , since the URL is shortened and the plugin does not take note of  its base URL.
    The error “Fatal error: Call to a member function find() on a non-object …” will occur if you put this shortcode in a text-overloaded post.

Summary

I’d recommend using this plugin for short posts to be added with other posts’ elements. The use of this plugin is limited though.



Source: http://extract-web-data.com/web-scraper-shortcode-wordpress-plugin-review/

Sunday 29 September 2013

Microsys A1 Website Scraper Review

The A1 scraper by Microsys is a program that is mainly used to scrape websites to extract data in large quantities for later use in webservices. The scraper works to extract text, URLs etc., using multiple Regexes and saving the output into a CSV file. This tool is can be compared with other web harvesting and web scraping services.
How it works
This scraper program works as follows:
Scan mode

    Go to the ScanWebsite tab and enter the site’s URL into the Path subtab.
    Press the ‘Start scan‘ button to cause the crawler to find text, links and other data on this website and cache them.

Important: URLs that you scrape data from have to pass filters defined in both analysis filters and output filters. The defining of those filters can be set at the Analysis filters and Output filters subtabs respectively. They must be set at the website analysis stage (mode).
Extract mode

    Go to the Scraper Options tab
    Enter the Regex(es) into the Regex input area.
    Define the name and path of the output CSV file.
    The scraper automatically finds and extracts the data according to Regex patterns.

The result will be stored in one CSV file for all the given URLs.

There is a need to mention that the set of regular expressions will be run against all the pages scraped.
Some more scraper features

Using the scraper as a website crawler also affords:

    URL filtering.
    Adjustment of the speed of crawling according to service needs rather than server load.

If  you need to extract data from a complex website, just disable Easy mode: out press the  button. A1 Scraper’s full tutorial is available here.
Conclusion

The A1 Scraper is good for mass gathering of URLs, text, etc., with multiple conditions set. However this scraping tool is designed for using only Regex expressions, which can increase the parsing process time greatly.



Source: http://extract-web-data.com/microsys-a1-website-scraper-review/

Friday 27 September 2013

Visual Web Ripper: Using External Input Data Sources

Sometimes it is necessary to use external data sources to provide parameters for the scraping process. For example, you have a database with a bunch of ASINs and you need to scrape all product information for each one of them. As far as Visual Web Ripper is concerned, an input data source can be used to provide a list of input values to a data extraction project. A data extraction project will be run once for each row of input values.

An input data source is normally used in one of these scenarios:

    To provide a list of input values for a web form
    To provide a list of start URLs
    To provide input values for Fixed Value elements
    To provide input values for scripts

Visual Web Ripper supports the following input data sources:

    SQL Server Database
    MySQL Database
    OleDB Database
    CSV File
    Script (A script can be used to provide data from almost any data source)

To see it in action you can download a sample project that uses an input CSV file with Amazon ASIN codes to generate Amazon start URLs and extract some product data. Place both the project file and the input CSV file in the default Visual Web Ripper project folder (My Documents\Visual Web Ripper\Projects).

For further information please look at the manual topic, explaining how to use an input data source to generate start URLs.


Source: http://extract-web-data.com/visual-web-ripper-using-external-input-data-sources/

Thursday 26 September 2013

Using External Input Data in Off-the-shelf Web Scrapers

There is a question I’ve wanted to shed some light upon for a long time already: “What if I need to scrape several URL’s based on data in some external database?“.

For example, recently one of our visitors asked a very good question (thanks, Ed):

    “I have a large list of amazon.com asin. I would like to scrape 10 or so fields for each asin. Is there any web scraping software available that can read each asin from a database and form the destination url to be scraped like http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/{asin} and scrape the data?”

This question impelled me to investigate this matter. I contacted several web scraper developers, and they kindly provided me with detailed answers that allowed me to bring the following summary to your attention:
Visual Web Ripper

An input data source can be used to provide a list of input values to a data extraction project. A data extraction project will be run once for each row of input values. You can find the additional information here.
Web Content Extractor

You can use the -at”filename” command line option to add new URLs from TXT or CSV file:

    WCExtractor.exe projectfile -at”filename” -s

projectfile: the file name of the project (*.wcepr) to open.
filename – the file name of the CSV or TXT file that contains URLs separated by newlines.
-s – starts the extraction process

You can find some options and examples here.
Mozenda

Since Mozenda is cloud-based, the external data needs to be loaded up into the user’s Mozenda account. That data can then be easily used as part of the data extracting process. You can construct URLs, search for strings that match your inputs, or carry through several data fields from an input collection and add data to it as part of your output. The easiest way to get input data from an external source is to use the API to populate data into a Mozenda collection (in the user’s account). You can also input data in the Mozenda web console by importing a .csv file or importing one through our agent building tool.

Once the data is loaded into the cloud, you simply initiate building a Mozenda web agent and refer to that Data list. By using the Load page action and the variable from the inputs, you can construct a URL like http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/%asin%.
Helium Scraper

Here is a video showing how to do this with Helium Scraper:

The video shows how to use the input data as URLs and as search terms. There are many other ways you could use this data, way too many to fit in a video. Also, if you know SQL, you could run a query to get the data directly from an external MS Access database like
SELECT * FROM [MyTable] IN "C:\MyDatabase.mdb"

Note that the database needs to be a “.mdb” file.
WebSundew Data Extractor
Basically this allows using input data from external data sources. This may be CSV, Excel file or a Database (MySQL, MSSQL, etc). Here you can see how to do this in the case of an external file, but you can do it with a database in a similar way (you just need to write an SQL script that returns the necessary data).
In addition to passing URLs from the external sources you can pass other input parameters as well (input fields, for example).
Screen Scraper

Screen Scraper is really designed to be interoperable with all sorts of databases. We have composed a separate article where you can find a tutorial and a sample project about scraping Amazon products based on a list of their ASINs.

Source: http://extract-web-data.com/using-external-input-data-in-off-the-shelf-web-scrapers/

Wednesday 25 September 2013

A simple way to turn a website into JSON

Recently, while surfing the web I stumbled upon an simple web scraping service named Web Scrape Master. It is a kind of RESTful web service that extracts data from a specified web site and returns it to you in JSON format.
How it works

Though I don’t know what this service may be useful for, I still like its simplicity: all you need to do is to make an HTTP GET request, passing all necessary parameters in the query string:
http://webscrapemaster.com/api/?url={url}&xpath={xpath}&attr={attr}&callback={callback}

    url  - the URL of the website you want to scrape
    xpath – xpath determining the data you need to extract
    attr - attribute the name you need to get the value of (optional)
    callback - JSON callback function (optional)

For example, for the following request to our testing ground:

http://webscrapemaster.com/api/?url=http://testing-ground.extract-web-data.com/blocks&xpath=//div[@id=case1]/div[1]/span[1]/div

You will get the following response:

[{"text":"<div class='name'>Dell Latitude D610-1.73 Laptop Wireless Computer</div>","attrs":{"class":"name"}}]
Visual Web Scraper

Also, this service offers a special visual tool for building such requests. All you need to do is to enter the URL of the website and click to the element you need to scrape:
Visual Web Scraper
Conclusion

Though I understand that the developer of this service is attempting to create a simple web scraping service, it is still hard to imagine where it can be useful. The task that the service does can be easily accomplished by means of any language.

Probably if you already have software receiving JSON from the web, and you want to feed it with data from some website, then you may find this service useful. The other possible application is to hide your IP when you do web scraping. If you have other ideas, it would be great if you shared them with us.



Source: http://extract-web-data.com/a-simple-way-to-turn-a-website-into-json/

Monday 23 September 2013

Web Data Extraction

The Internet as we know today is a repository of information that can be accessed across geographical societies. In just over two decades, the Web has moved from a university curiosity to a fundamental research, marketing and communications vehicle that impinges upon the everyday life of most people in all over the world. It is accessed by over 16% of the population of the world spanning over 233 countries.

As the amount of information on the Web grows, that information becomes ever harder to keep track of and use. Compounding the matter is this information is spread over billions of Web pages, each with its own independent structure and format. So how do you find the information you're looking for in a useful format - and do it quickly and easily without breaking the bank?

Search Isn't Enough

Search engines are a big help, but they can do only part of the work, and they are hard-pressed to keep up with daily changes. For all the power of Google and its kin, all that search engines can do is locate information and point to it. They go only two or three levels deep into a Web site to find information and then return URLs. Search Engines cannot retrieve information from deep-web, information that is available only after filling in some sort of registration form and logging, and store it in a desirable format. In order to save the information in a desirable format or a particular application, after using the search engine to locate data, you still have to do the following tasks to capture the information you need:

· Scan the content until you find the information.

· Mark the information (usually by highlighting with a mouse).

· Switch to another application (such as a spreadsheet, database or word processor).

· Paste the information into that application.

Its not all copy and paste

Consider the scenario of a company is looking to build up an email marketing list of over 100,000 thousand names and email addresses from a public group. It will take up over 28 man-hours if the person manages to copy and paste the Name and Email in 1 second, translating to over $500 in wages only, not to mention the other costs associated with it. Time involved in copying a record is directly proportion to the number of fields of data that has to copy/pasted.

Is there any Alternative to copy-paste?

A better solution, especially for companies that are aiming to exploit a broad swath of data about markets or competitors available on the Internet, lies with usage of custom Web harvesting software and tools.

Web harvesting software automatically extracts information from the Web and picks up where search engines leave off, doing the work the search engine can't. Extraction tools automate the reading, the copying and pasting necessary to collect information for further use. The software mimics the human interaction with the website and gathers data in a manner as if the website is being browsed. Web Harvesting software only navigate the website to locate, filter and copy the required data at much higher speeds that is humanly possible. Advanced software even able to browse the website and gather data silently without leaving the footprints of access.

The next article of this series will give more details about how such softwares and uncover some myths on web harvesting.

Mr. Tuke is the owner of Database-Technology.net that offers complete Web Data Extraction Services and Solutions to rapidly aggregate data and information from multiple Internet sources for your Business needs in a cost efficient manner.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Web-Data-Extraction&id=575212

Sunday 22 September 2013

How Data Mining Can Help in Customer Relationship Management Or CRM?

Customer relationship management (CRM) is critical activity of improvising customer interactions while at the same time making the interactions more amicable through individualization. Data mining utilizes various data analysis and modeling methods to detect specific patterns and relationships in data. This helps in understanding what a customer wants and forecasting what they will do.

Using Data mining you can find out right prospects and offer them right products. This results in improved revenue because you can respond to each customer in best way using fewer resources.

Basic process of CRM data mining includes:
1. Define business objective
2. Construct marketing database
3. Analyze data
4. Visualize a model
5. Explore model
6. Set up model & start monitoring

Let me explain above steps in detail.

Define the business objective:
Every CRM process has one or more business objective for which you need to construct the suitable model. This model varies depending on your specific goal. The more precise your statement for defining the problem is the more successful is your CRM project.

Construct a marketing database:
This step involves creation of constructive marketing database since your operational data often don't contain the information in the form you want it. The first step in building your database is to clean it up so that you can construct clean models with accurate data.

The data you need may be scattered across different databases such as the client database, operational database and sales databases. This means you have to integrate the data into a single marketing database. Inaccurately reconciled data is a major source of quality issues.

Analyze the data:
Prior to building a correct predictive model, you must analyze your data. Collect a variety of numerical summaries (such as averages, standard deviations and so forth). You may want to generate a cross-section of multi-dimensional data such as pivot tables.

Graphing and visualization tools are a vital aid in data analysis. Data visualization most often provides better insight that leads to innovative ideas and success.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Data-Mining-Can-Help-in-Customer-Relationship-Management-Or-CRM?&id=4572272

Friday 20 September 2013

Beneficial Data Collection Services

Internet is becoming the biggest source for information gathering. Varieties of search engines are available over the World Wide Web which helps in searching any kind of information easily and quickly. Every business needs relevant data for their decision making for which market research plays a crucial role. One of the services booming very fast is the data collection services. This data mining service helps in gathering relevant data which is hugely needed for your business or personal use.

Traditionally, data collection has been done manually which is not very feasible in case of bulk data requirement. Although people still use manual copying and pasting of data from Web pages or download a complete Web site which is shear wastage of time and effort. Instead, a more reliable and convenient method is automated data collection technique. There is a web scraping techniques that crawls through thousands of web pages for the specified topic and simultaneously incorporates this information into a database, XML file, CSV file, or other custom format for future reference. Few of the most commonly used web data extraction processes are websites which provide you information about the competitor's pricing and featured data; spider is a government portal that helps in extracting the names of citizens for an investigation; websites which have variety of downloadable images.

Aside, there is a more sophisticated method of automated data collection service. Here, you can easily scrape the web site information on daily basis automatically. This method greatly helps you in discovering the latest market trends, customer behavior and the future trends. Few of the major examples of automated data collection solutions are price monitoring information; collection of data of various financial institutions on a daily basis; verification of different reports on a constant basis and use them for taking better and progressive business decisions.

While using these service make sure you use the right procedure. Like when you are retrieving data download it in a spreadsheet so that the analysts can do the comparison and analysis properly. This will also help in getting accurate results in a faster and more refined manner.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Beneficial-Data-Collection-Services&id=5879822

Thursday 19 September 2013

Data Mining - Techniques and Process of Data Mining

Data mining as the name suggest is extracting informative data from a huge source of information. It is like segregating a drop from the ocean. Here a drop is the most important information essential for your business, and the ocean is the huge database built up by you.

Recognized in Business

Businesses have become too creative, by coming up with new patterns and trends and of behavior through data mining techniques or automated statistical analysis. Once the desired information is found from the huge database it could be used for various applications. If you want to get involved into other functions of your business you should take help of professional data mining services available in the industry

Data Collection

Data collection is the first step required towards a constructive data-mining program. Almost all businesses require collecting data. It is the process of finding important data essential for your business, filtering and preparing it for a data mining outsourcing process. For those who are already have experience to track customer data in a database management system, have probably achieved their destination.

Algorithm selection

You may select one or more data mining algorithms to resolve your problem. You already have database. You may experiment using several techniques. Your selection of algorithm depends upon the problem that you are want to resolve, the data collected, as well as the tools you possess.

Regression Technique

The most well-know and the oldest statistical technique utilized for data mining is regression. Using a numerical dataset, it then further develops a mathematical formula applicable to the data. Here taking your new data use it into existing mathematical formula developed by you and you will get a prediction of future behavior. Now knowing the use is not enough. You will have to learn about its limitations associated with it. This technique works best with continuous quantitative data as age, speed or weight. While working on categorical data as gender, name or color, where order is not significant it better to use another suitable technique.

Classification Technique

There is another technique, called classification analysis technique which is suitable for both, categorical data as well as a mix of categorical and numeric data. Compared to regression technique, classification technique can process a broader range of data, and therefore is popular. Here one can easily interpret output. Here you will get a decision tree requiring a series of binary decisions.

Our best wishes are with you for your endeavors.

Visit our website: http://www.onlinewebresearchservices.com for gaining further knowledge in the industry. You are welcome to our services if you want to get it done in most reliable manner.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining---Techniques-and-Process-of-Data-Mining&id=5302867

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Data Entry in Outsourcing Businesses

The process in, which a business house engages another company to do a particular type of work instead of using its own employees to do the same work, is called outsourcing. This is basically practiced so that the company can concentrate more on the core function. The cheap cost of outsourcing work is also another reason.

Outsourcing companies are often referred as "business to business" companies. Their business is dependent on the service provided by them to other business houses. Nowadays, every company is engaged in outsourcing. When a sole proprietor gives responsibility to another to buy supplies for the office, then automatically this process becomes outsourcing. In a real sense, it is almost impossible to do everything by yourself. You have to become dependent on those who are skilled in certain fields.

Data entry is one of the oldest and well known as the most common outsourcing activities that have been widely accepted across the globe for a long period of time. Still today, the demand is sky rocketing and the scope of data entry companies are just expanding.

All companies value their data very much. In order to generate good business, you need to deal with your data efficiently. Thus, companies related to BTB activities take care of the data handling very seriously. The employees are trained and prepared for all sorts of detailed oriented work. The services vary from back office support for a banking institute, calculation of medical bills, maintaining payroll functions etc. Banks generally outsource the work of the business class customers. Lock box payment is one of such example.

There are plenty of companies in the market of outsourcing who are engaged in providing in different kinds of services to the clients all across the globe. Many companies, which are earlier engaged into hard core data entry operations, are now exploring the area of medical billing, research work, project work for various universities, marketing job, news agencies, trade and several types of insurance organizations.

You can help your company to grow and reach a tremendous height once you get accustomed to take the advantages from various available data entry work. The service providers take an extra step to make sure that the work those are being delivered are of high quality and fulfill all the requirements as asked by the clients. Accuracy and punctually are the keywords to survive in the outsourcing market. Companies prefer outsourcing as the cost is always lower than the company would require spending on salaries if the same work was done by their own employees. Outsourcing is a very lucrative option for many business houses as it gives you the freedom to concentrate on your core business process and even you end up saving a good sum of money by outsourcing data entry work.

Sachin Kumar Airon is the writer for the website http://www.skgtechnologies.com. Please visit for information on all things concerned with Data Entry




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Entry-in-Outsourcing-Businesses&id=2021508

Tuesday 17 September 2013

One of the Main Differences Between Statistical Analysis and Data Mining

Two methods of analyzing data that are common in both academic and commercial fields are statistical analysis and data mining. While statistical analysis has a long scientific history, data mining is a more recent method of data analysis that has arisen from Computer Science. In this article I want to give an introduction to these methods and outline what I believe is one of the main differences between the two fields of analysis.

Statistical analysis commonly involves an analyst formulating a hypothesis and then testing the validity of this hypothesis by running statistical tests on data that may have been collected for the purpose. For example, if an analyst was studying the relationship between income level and the ability to get a loan, the analyst may hypothesis that there will be a correlation between income level and the amount of credit someone may qualify for.

The analyst could then test this hypothesis with the use of a data set that contains a number of people along with their income levels and the credit available to them. A test could be run that indicates for example that there may be a high degree of confidence that there is indeed a correlation between income and available credit. The main point here is that the analyst has formulated a hypothesis and then used a statistical test along with a data set to provide evidence in support or against that hypothesis.

Data mining is another area of data analysis that has arisen more recently from computer science that has a number of differences to traditional statistical analysis. Firstly, many data mining techniques are designed to be applied to very large data sets, while statistical analysis techniques are often designed to form evidence in support or against a hypothesis from a more limited set of data.

Probably the mist significant difference here, however, is that data mining techniques are not used so much to form confidence in a hypothesis, but rather extract unknown relationships may be present in the data set. This is probably best illustrated with an example. Rather than in the above case where a statistician may form a hypothesis between income levels and an applicants ability to get a loan, in data mining, there is not typically an initial hypothesis. A data mining analyst may have a large data set on loans that have been given to people along with demographic information of these people such as their income level, their age, any existing debts they have and if they have ever defaulted on a loan before.

A data mining technique may then search through this large data set and extract a previously unknown relationship between income levels, peoples existing debt and their ability to get a loan.

While there are quite a few differences between statistical analysis and data mining, I believe this difference is at the heart of the issue. A lot of statistical analysis is about analyzing data to either form confidence for or against a stated hypothesis while data mining is often more about applying an algorithm to a data set to extract previously unforeseen relationships.

The author has a number of websites that provide financial calculators including the sites mortgage calculator amortization and refinance calculator mortgage.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?One-of-the-Main-Differences-Between-Statistical-Analysis-and-Data-Mining&id=4578250

Monday 16 September 2013

Where's Your Content?

Once again, it's being made clear that the old isn't old at all. Google's latest update seems to make it clearer than ever that actual website content continues to be a vital element in creating a successful website. Of course, there's lots more to it, but what we do know is that all search engines like content, especially when it's new, different and unique. Static sites where new content is not being added on a regular basis, become stale and their rankings often drop.

Solutions that involve large amounts of content from RSS feeds or search engine results are now looking like a good method to get you dropped from Google. Scraping is illegal. While imitation may be a form of flattery, stealing the full content from a site or blog is just criminal. If this seems even slightly tempting, forget it. You won't last long and the consequences aren't worth it.

So where is your content? The absolute best source of content remains articles you write yourself. Why? First, they're unique. Second, you can submit them to article directories for links and wider distribution. Third, branding. The people who write and publish good quality information become known.

The downside? It all takes time and you have to do your research. Few people can write quality niche content without doing at least some research. However, if your plan involves a long-term business in a niche, it's well worth it. While all the information you use in your articles might be easily found with a little searching, the reality is that very few people will do that simple search. By doing it for them and creating articles and content based on your research, you become an expert. Your time investment can pay off in a major way as you become an acknowledged expert in your niche. Your site becomes an authority site. It doesn't get a whole lot better than that.

No magic, no instant solution. We keep buying books and tools that promise quick easy solutions. But a little thought should tell you that if they existed, the owner certainly wouldn't be selling (or at least not until they stopped working well). Everything requires learning, testing, modifying and just plain hard work to get the best results. No matter how you go about it, you need to invest time, and writing articles is a great investment for long-term success.

If it seems impossible, start with the simplest kind of article. Gather tips, hints or tricks about a niche subject. Write each one as a separate paragraph. Write a short introduction - a paragraph explaining the subject and the type of hints or tips in the article. That's your first paragraph. Next come the tip paragraphs. If you need to, add linking or bridging sentences like: "Here's another way to improve your whatever-it-is." This kind of article is meant to be simple, clear and easy to understand. Nothing fancy required, just plain straightforward text. Use a spelling checker, use a grammar checker. Hey, if you need to, use a speech to text processor, just get that first one done and submit it. Believe me, it gets a lot easier after the first time.

It's a rare marketer who can write enough articles to provide the full content of a new site. Over time, however, more and more of the site's content could come from your own unique articles. Meanwhile where else can you look for high quality content?

PD (Public Domain) materials offer great possibilities. Sure, you have to make certain that the content really is in the public domain and it may involve scanning, editing and proofing, breaking the materials down to suitable size and then making the appropriate pages and articles. Still, depending on your niche, you could find unique PD content that has never appeared in the SEs and which will be highly attractive to your site visitors. Aside from using it to create pages, you can create articles, viral PDFs or eBooks, products to sell, autoresponder series, newsletter content -- you are really only limited by your imagination.

Membership sites offering private label products are also a valuable source of content. With this sort of content, you'll probably want to do some rewriting and rearranging, adding some new content of your own and so on. Naturally, the more you modify the content, the more unique it will be. Since the rights to different products may vary, make sure you understand what you can and can't do with any particular item before you begin working on it.
Other sites offer packages of ghost-written private label articles. Some you might use as articles pages, others you might rewrite and submit as well as put them on your site. Again, check your rights to be clear on what is permitted (or required).

Another alternative is to hire ghost writers to produce content specifically for you. A great deal of the information on a lot of sites and in a lot of info-products has been ghost-written. Content produced exclusively for you should definitely be unique. This may be more costly than other alternatives, but you are paying for the time saved, the uniqueness and for full rights to the content produced.

Third-party articles are another source for added content. By including your own introductions before and/or comments after each article, you can differentiate your site from any other publishing the same article.

Use a mix of the ideas in this article, and you're on your way to creating a valuable and sticky site that visitors will find useful and want to return to. And your site will be attractive to the search engines. Keep in mind that this is on-going process. Don't stop. Adding new and unique content regularly is one of the very best methods of guaranteeing a successful and long-lived web site.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Wheres-Your-Content?&id=89826

Sunday 15 September 2013

Data Processing Services - Different Types of Data Processing

Data processing services- To get proper information in specific and require data format and process your data which can be understand by people.

In the most of BPO (business process outsourcing) companies, converting your data (information) into right data format which is known as data processing services and also a very important part of the BPO company. There are many types of data process are available in the BPO industry such as check processing, insurance claim process, forms process, image process, survey processing and other business process services.

There is some important data processing services which can help to the business described as below:

Check-Processing: In any business, check processing is essential requirements to make easy online transactions. It will increase and make fast your business process.

Insurance-Claim-Processing: Sometime it is very complicated to handle. An insurance claim is an official request submitted to the insurance company demanding payment as per the terms of the policy. The terms of the insurance contract dictate the insurance claim amount.

Form-Processing: In the business, there are some important forms are used to process properly and receive accurate data or information. It is one of very crucial data online processing service.

Image-Processing: In electrical engineering and computer science, capturing and manipulating images to enhance or extract information. Image processing functions include resizing, sharpening, brightness, and contrast.

Survey-Processing: To make quick decision and want to market research, survey form is very much helpful in take proper decision or any important action.

Thus, these all important data process and conversion services can help any business to grow their profit and make business process very easy to access.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Processing-Services---Different-Types-of-Data-Processing&id=3874740

Friday 13 September 2013

Web Data Extraction Services

Web Data Extraction from Dynamic Pages includes some of the services that may be acquired through outsourcing. It is possible to siphon information from proven websites through the use of Data Scrapping software. The information is applicable in many areas in business. It is possible to get such solutions as data collection, screen scrapping, email extractor and Web Data Mining services among others from companies providing websites such as Scrappingexpert.com.

Data mining is common as far as outsourcing business is concerned. Many companies are outsource data mining services and companies dealing with these services can earn a lot of money, especially in the growing business regarding outsourcing and general internet business. With web data extraction, you will pull data in a structured organized format. The source of the information will even be from an unstructured or semi-structured source.

In addition, it is possible to pull data which has originally been presented in a variety of formats including PDF, HTML, and test among others. The web data extraction service therefore, provides a diversity regarding the source of information. Large scale organizations have used data extraction services where they get large amounts of data on a daily basis. It is possible for you to get high accuracy of information in an efficient manner and it is also affordable.

Web data extraction services are important when it comes to collection of data and web-based information on the internet. Data collection services are very important as far as consumer research is concerned. Research is turning out to be a very vital thing among companies today. There is need for companies to adopt various strategies that will lead to fast means of data extraction, efficient extraction of data, as well as use of organized formats and flexibility.

In addition, people will prefer software that provides flexibility as far as application is concerned. In addition, there is software that can be customized according to the needs of customers, and these will play an important role in fulfilling diverse customer needs. Companies selling the particular software therefore, need to provide such features that provide excellent customer experience.

It is possible for companies to extract emails and other communications from certain sources as far as they are valid email messages. This will be done without incurring any duplicates. You will extract emails and messages from a variety of formats for the web pages, including HTML files, text files and other formats. It is possible to carry these services in a fast reliable and in an optimal output and hence, the software providing such capability is in high demand. It can help businesses and companies quickly search contacts for the people to be sent email messages.

It is also possible to use software to sort large amount of data and extract information, in an activity termed as data mining. This way, the company will realize reduced costs and saving of time and increasing return on investment. In this practice, the company will carry out Meta data extraction, scanning data, and others as well.

please visit Data extraction services to take care of your online as well as offline projects and to get your work done in given time frame with exceptional quality.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Web-Data-Extraction-Services&id=4733722

Thursday 12 September 2013

Data Mining Explained

Overview
Data mining is the crucial process of extracting implicit and possibly useful information from data. It uses analytical and visualization techniques to explore and present information in a format which is easily understandable by humans.

Data mining is widely used in a variety of profiling practices, such as fraud detection, marketing research, surveys and scientific discovery.

In this article I will briefly explain some of the fundamentals and its applications in the real world.

Herein I will not discuss related processes of any sorts, including Data Extraction and Data Structuring.

The Effort
Data Mining has found its application in various fields such as financial institutions, health-care & bio-informatics, business intelligence, social networks data research and many more.

Businesses use it to understand consumer behavior, analyze buying patterns of clients and expand its marketing efforts. Banks and financial institutions use it to detect credit card frauds by recognizing the patterns involved in fake transactions.

The Knack
There is definitely a knack to Data Mining, as there is with any other field of web research activities. That is why it is referred as a craft rather than a science. A craft is the skilled practicing of an occupation.

One point I would like to make here is that data mining solutions offers an analytical perspective into the performance of a company depending on the historical data but one need to consider unknown external events and deceitful activities. On the flip side it is more critical especially for Regulatory bodies to forecast such activities in advance and take necessary measures to prevent such events in future.

In Closing
There are many important niches of Web Data Research that this article has not covered. But I hope that this article will provide you a stage to drill down further into this subject, if you want to do so!

Should you have any queries, please feel free to mail me. I would be pleased to answer each of your queries in detail.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining-Explained&id=4341782

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Data Management Services

In recent studies it has been revealed that any business activity has astonishing huge volumes of data, hence the ideas has to be organized well and can be easily gotten when need arises. Timely and accurate solutions are important in facilitating efficiency in any business activity. With the emerging professional outsourcing and data organizing companies nowadays many services are offered that matches the various kinds of managing the data collected and various business activities. This article looks at some of the benefits that accrue of offered by the professional data mining companies.

Entering of data

These kinds of services are quite significant since they help in converting the data that is needed in high ideal and format that is digitized. In internet some of this data can found that is original and handwritten. In printed paper documents and or text are not likely to contain electronic or needed formats. The best example in this context is books that need to be converted to e-books. In insurance companies they also depend on this process in processing the claims of insurance and at the same time apply to the law firms that offer support to analyze and process legal documents.

EDC

That is referred to as electronic data. This method is mostly used by clinical researchers and other related organization in medical. The electronic data and capture methods are used in the utilization in managing trials and research. The data mining and data management services are given in upcoming databases for studies. The ideas contained can easily be captured, other services being done and the survey taken.

Data changing

This is the process of converting data found in one format to another. Data extraction process often involves mining data from an existing system, formatting it, cleansing it and can be installed to enhance both availability and retrieving of information easily. Extensive testing and application are the requirements of this process. The service offered by data mining companies includes SGML conversion, XML conversion, CAD conversion, HTML conversion, image conversion.

Managing data service

In this service it involves the conversion of documents. It is where one character of a text may need to be converted to another. If we take an example it is easy to change image, video or audio file formats to other applications of the software that can be played or displayed. In indexing and scanning is where the services are mostly offered.

Data extraction and cleansing

Significant information and sequences from huge databases and websites extraction firms use this kind of service. The data harvested is supposed to be in a productive way and should be cleansed to increase the quality. Both manual and automated data cleansing services are offered by data mining organizations. This helps to ensure that there is accuracy, completeness and integrity of data. Also we keep in mind that data mining is never enough.

Web scraping, data extraction services, web extraction, imaging, catalog conversion, web data mining and others are the other management services offered by data mining organization. If your business organization needs such services here is one that can be of great significance that is web scraping and data mining



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Management-Services&id=7131758

Monday 9 September 2013

Outsource Your Work To Data Entry Services To Convert Your Paperwork To An Electronic Format

Among the many services that are outsourced, data entry services are much in demand. While the job profile might seem simple it does in fact require a certain degree of exactness and an eye for detail. Maintaining and handling the client confidentiality is also very important. Data needs to be processed and the first step is always entering the information in the system. An operator needs to be careful while entering information in the system as often this data is used to collate data and for statistical reports and is also the foundation for all the information on the company. These services include much more than just basic information in this technology driven age. An operator today has projects that require Image entry, card Entry, legal document's entry, medical claim entry, entry for online survey forms, online indexing, copying, pasting and sorting of data etc.

A Data entry operator is competent at handling online as well as offline data and even to excel. Specialized services like Image editing, image clipping and cropping services are also available with this service. BPO companies offer these services at very cost effective rates and the work is processed 24x7 ensuring that the work is constantly auctioned. Many data sensitive projects are also completed even in a 24 hour. There are many online services to choose from and each specializes in various features with ample industry experience. These services use the latest technology to ensure that paperwork is processed in the shorted possible time and is converted into electronic data that is easier to store.

A professional service must be able to offer the following features like data conversion and even storage, effective management of databases and an adherence to turnaround times, 100% accuracy of the data entered, 24x7 webs and phone support, a secure and accurate data capture, data extraction and data processing and importantly a cost effective solution for quality data services. A professional company will also ensure that there is a Quality Assurance department monitoring the quality of the work being handled with relevant feedback to both the client and to the operator.

Before deciding on outsourcing your work to a data entry service ensures that the company is known for its reliability and quality. A company that offers data backup is also a good option as it will take care of all the paperwork while forwarding the converted electronic data back. This paperwork could be extracted in the case of a claim or any legal requirement. There are many BPO companies online advertising their services, browse through their features and find one that suits your requirements.

The writer is a Data entry service provider who specializes as data entry operator. Inquire for a free quote for data entry services. If you want services as data entry operators or data entry for your organizations. We are able to provide data entry services at affordable low cost.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Outsource-Your-Work-To-Data-Entry-Services-To-Convert-Your-Paperwork-To-An-Electronic-Format&id=7270797

Sunday 8 September 2013

Enjoy Valuable Advantages of Finding Professional Online Data Entry Services

Outsourcing is eyed as a cost-effective means to make the business cycle run. The market consists of a lot of heartened buyers who have enjoyed the fruits of outsourcing by compensating a trivial sum to online data entry service providers. They have felt that the sum they shelled out to these services is quite insignificant when compared to the work they got completed by doing so. Of late, its effect among corporate people is so huge that even those who did not prefer to outsource their projects have embraced this practice realizing quite a few of the several advantages that it has in store. Online Data Entry Services is subcontracted to a lot of individuals and other smaller business units that take such projects as their prime source of occupation.

Many services are distributed to companies who approach these online data entry service providers. Some of the commonly used services are web research, mortgage research, product entry and lastly data mining and extraction services. Adept professionals are at your service in these service providers as those who run such units strongly believe in deploying a team of skilled professionals to help clients realize results as quick as possible. Moreover, the systems that are up for utilization in these units are technically advanced both in terms of utility and security hence you need not fear for having outsourced some crucial data sheets belonging to your company. These providers value your information as how they treasure you association and hence you need not actually care a lot about the confidentiality of your information.

Business firms can look forward to receiving high-class data entry from the hands of online data entry services that undertake such projects. Some of the below-mentioned points are a short listing of what interests business in subcontracting the work to professionals.

    Keying in the data happens to be the first phase at the end of which the companies get understandable information to make strategic decisions with. What appeared as raw data represented by mere numbers some time ago is a pointer or a guide, at present, to accelerate business progress.
    Systems being used for such processes offer complete protection to the information.
    As chances of obtaining high quality information rises, the company's business executive is expected to arrive at excellent decisions that reflect on the company's better performance in future.
    Turnaround time is considerably shortened.
    Cost-effective approach does hold a lot of substance since it considerably decreases the operational overheads related to data entry services within the business wing of the company itself.

Saving money and time holds a unique advantage and outsourcing of such online data entry services proffers these businesses this distinctive edge. Thriving companies intend to focus on their core operations instead of delving into such non-core activities, which do not weigh as good as other essential industrial operations that they need to look after. Why should one take and put these chores on themselves when some professionals who are capable of delivering effective results can be picked from the outsourcing market.

Finding a trustable firm rendering online data entry services is not difficult any longer. Search for the reliable business establishments to subcontract everyday data entry work and feel happy for having acted wise.


Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Enjoy-Valuable-Advantages-of-Finding-Professional-Online-Data-Entry-Services&id=4680177

Friday 6 September 2013

Data Mining and Financial Data Analysis

Introduction:

Most marketers understand the value of collecting financial data, but also realize the challenges of leveraging this knowledge to create intelligent, proactive pathways back to the customer. Data mining - technologies and techniques for recognizing and tracking patterns within data - helps businesses sift through layers of seemingly unrelated data for meaningful relationships, where they can anticipate, rather than simply react to, customer needs as well as financial need. In this accessible introduction, we provides a business and technological overview of data mining and outlines how, along with sound business processes and complementary technologies, data mining can reinforce and redefine for financial analysis.

Objective:

1. The main objective of mining techniques is to discuss how customized data mining tools should be developed for financial data analysis.

2. Usage pattern, in terms of the purpose can be categories as per the need for financial analysis.

3. Develop a tool for financial analysis through data mining techniques.

Data mining:

Data mining is the procedure for extracting or mining knowledge for the large quantity of data or we can say data mining is "knowledge mining for data" or also we can say Knowledge Discovery in Database (KDD). Means data mining is : data collection , database creation, data management, data analysis and understanding.

There are some steps in the process of knowledge discovery in database, such as

1. Data cleaning. (To remove nose and inconsistent data)

2. Data integration. (Where multiple data source may be combined.)

3. Data selection. (Where data relevant to the analysis task are retrieved from the database.)

4. Data transformation. (Where data are transformed or consolidated into forms appropriate for mining by performing summary or aggregation operations, for instance)

5. Data mining. (An essential process where intelligent methods are applied in order to extract data patterns.)

6. Pattern evaluation. (To identify the truly interesting patterns representing knowledge based on some interesting measures.)

7. Knowledge presentation.(Where visualization and knowledge representation techniques are used to present the mined knowledge to the user.)

Data Warehouse:

A data warehouse is a repository of information collected from multiple sources, stored under a unified schema and which usually resides at a single site.

Text:

Most of the banks and financial institutions offer a wide verity of banking services such as checking, savings, business and individual customer transactions, credit and investment services like mutual funds etc. Some also offer insurance services and stock investment services.

There are different types of analysis available, but in this case we want to give one analysis known as "Evolution Analysis".

Data evolution analysis is used for the object whose behavior changes over time. Although this may include characterization, discrimination, association, classification, or clustering of time related data, means we can say this evolution analysis is done through the time series data analysis, sequence or periodicity pattern matching and similarity based data analysis.

Data collect from banking and financial sectors are often relatively complete, reliable and high quality, which gives the facility for analysis and data mining. Here we discuss few cases such as,

Eg, 1. Suppose we have stock market data of the last few years available. And we would like to invest in shares of best companies. A data mining study of stock exchange data may identify stock evolution regularities for overall stocks and for the stocks of particular companies. Such regularities may help predict future trends in stock market prices, contributing our decision making regarding stock investments.

Eg, 2. One may like to view the debt and revenue change by month, by region and by other factors along with minimum, maximum, total, average, and other statistical information. Data ware houses, give the facility for comparative analysis and outlier analysis all are play important roles in financial data analysis and mining.

Eg, 3. Loan payment prediction and customer credit analysis are critical to the business of the bank. There are many factors can strongly influence loan payment performance and customer credit rating. Data mining may help identify important factors and eliminate irrelevant one.

Factors related to the risk of loan payments like term of the loan, debt ratio, payment to income ratio, credit history and many more. The banks than decide whose profile shows relatively low risks according to the critical factor analysis.

We can perform the task faster and create a more sophisticated presentation with financial analysis software. These products condense complex data analyses into easy-to-understand graphic presentations. And there's a bonus: Such software can vault our practice to a more advanced business consulting level and help we attract new clients.

To help us find a program that best fits our needs-and our budget-we examined some of the leading packages that represent, by vendors' estimates, more than 90% of the market. Although all the packages are marketed as financial analysis software, they don't all perform every function needed for full-spectrum analyses. It should allow us to provide a unique service to clients.

The Products:

ACCPAC CFO (Comprehensive Financial Optimizer) is designed for small and medium-size enterprises and can help make business-planning decisions by modeling the impact of various options. This is accomplished by demonstrating the what-if outcomes of small changes. A roll forward feature prepares budgets or forecast reports in minutes. The program also generates a financial scorecard of key financial information and indicators.

Customized Financial Analysis by BizBench provides financial benchmarking to determine how a company compares to others in its industry by using the Risk Management Association (RMA) database. It also highlights key ratios that need improvement and year-to-year trend analysis. A unique function, Back Calculation, calculates the profit targets or the appropriate asset base to support existing sales and profitability. Its DuPont Model Analysis demonstrates how each ratio affects return on equity.

Financial Analysis CS reviews and compares a client's financial position with business peers or industry standards. It also can compare multiple locations of a single business to determine which are most profitable. Users who subscribe to the RMA option can integrate with Financial Analysis CS, which then lets them provide aggregated financial indicators of peers or industry standards, showing clients how their businesses compare.

iLumen regularly collects a client's financial information to provide ongoing analysis. It also provides benchmarking information, comparing the client's financial performance with industry peers. The system is Web-based and can monitor a client's performance on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis. The network can upload a trial balance file directly from any accounting software program and provide charts, graphs and ratios that demonstrate a company's performance for the period. Analysis tools are viewed through customized dashboards.

PlanGuru by New Horizon Technologies can generate client-ready integrated balance sheets, income statements and cash-flow statements. The program includes tools for analyzing data, making projections, forecasting and budgeting. It also supports multiple resulting scenarios. The system can calculate up to 21 financial ratios as well as the breakeven point. PlanGuru uses a spreadsheet-style interface and wizards that guide users through data entry. It can import from Excel, QuickBooks, Peachtree and plain text files. It comes in professional and consultant editions. An add-on, called the Business Analyzer, calculates benchmarks.

ProfitCents by Sageworks is Web-based, so it requires no software or updates. It integrates with QuickBooks, CCH, Caseware, Creative Solutions and Best Software applications. It also provides a wide variety of businesses analyses for nonprofits and sole proprietorships. The company offers free consulting, training and customer support. It's also available in Spanish.

ProfitSystem fx Profit Driver by CCH Tax and Accounting provides a wide range of financial diagnostics and analytics. It provides data in spreadsheet form and can calculate benchmarking against industry standards. The program can track up to 40 periods.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining-and-Financial-Data-Analysis&id=2752017

Thursday 5 September 2013

Data Extraction Services - A Helpful Hand For Large Organization

The data extraction is the way to extract and to structure data from not structured and semi-structured electronic documents, as found on the web and in various data warehouses. Data extraction is extremely useful for the huge organizations which deal with considerable amounts of data, daily, which must be transformed into significant information and be stored for the use this later on.

Your company with tons of data but it is difficult to control and convert the data into useful information. Without right information at the right time and based on half of accurate information, decision makers with a company waste time by making wrong strategic decisions. In high competing world of businesses, the essential statistics such as information customer, the operational figures of the competitor and the sales figures inter-members play a big role in the manufacture of the strategic decisions. It can help you to take strategic business decisions that can shape your business' goals..

Outsourcing companies provide custom made services to the client's requirements. A few of the areas where it can be used to generate better sales leads, extract and harvest product pricing data, capture financial data, acquire real estate data, conduct market research , survey and analysis, conduct product research and analysis and duplicate an online database..

The different types of Data Extraction Services:

    Database Extraction:
    Reorganized data from multiple databases such as statistics about competitor's products, pricing and latest offers and customer opinion and reviews can be extracted and stored as per the requirement of company.
    Web Data Extraction:
    Web Data Extraction is also known as data Extraction which is usually referred to the practice of extract or reading text data from a targeted website.

Businesses have now realized about the huge benefits they can get by outsourcing their services. Then outsourcing is profitable option for business. Since all projects are custom based to suit the exact needs of the customer, huge savings in terms of time, money and infrastructure are among the many advantages that outsourcing brings.

Advantages of Outsourcing Data Extraction Services:

    Improved technology scalability
    Skilled and qualified technical staff who are proficient in English
    Advanced infrastructure resources
    Quick turnaround time
    Cost-effective prices
    Secure Network systems to ensure data safety
    Increased market coverage

By outsourcing, you can definitely increase your competitive advantages. Outsourcing of services helps businesses to manage their data effectively, which in turn would enable them to experience an increase in profits.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Extraction-Services---A-Helpful-Hand-For-Large-Organization&id=2477589

Wednesday 4 September 2013

Data Mining - A Short Introduction

Data mining is an integral part of data analysis which contains a series of activities that goes from the 'meaning' of the ideas, to the 'analysis' of the data and up to the 'interpretation' and 'evaluation' of the outcome. The different stages of the technique are as follows:

Objectives for Analysis: It is sometimes very difficult to statistically define the phenomenon we wish to analyze. In fact, the business objectives are often clear, but the same can be difficult to formalize. A clear understanding of the crisis and the goals is very important setup the analysis correctly. This is undoubtedly, one of the most complex parts of the process, since it establishes the techniques to be engaged and as such, the objectives must be crystal clear and there should not be any doubt or ambiguity.

Collection, grouping and pre-processing of the data: Once the objectives of the analysis are set and defined, we need to gather or choose the data needed for the study. At first, it is essential to recognize the data sources. Usually data are collected from the internal sources as the same are economical and more dependable and moreover these data also has the benefit of being the outcome of the experiences and procedures of the business itself.

Investigative analysis of the data and their conversion: This stage includes a preliminary examination of the information available. It involves a preliminary assessment of the significance of the gathered data. An exploratory and / or investigative analysis can highlight the irregular data. An exploratory analysis is important because it lets the analyst choose the most suitable statistical method for the subsequent stage of the analysis.

Choosing statistical methods: There are multiple statistical methods that can be put into use for the purpose of analysis, so it is very essential to categorize the existing methods. The choice statistical method is case specific and depends on the problem and also upon the type of information available.

Data analysis on the basis of chosen methods: Once the statistical method is chosen, the same must be translated into proper algorithms for working out the results. Ranges of specialized and non-specialized software are widely available for data mining and as such it is not always required to develop ad hoc computation algorithms for the most 'standard' purpose. However, it is essential that the people managing the data mining method well aware and have a good knowledge and understanding of the various methods of data analysis and also the different software solutions available for the same, so that they may adapt the same in times of need of the company and can flawlessly interpret the results.

Assessment and contrast of the techniques used and selection of the final model for analysis: It is of utmost necessity to choose the best 'model' from the variety of statistical methods accessible. The selection of the model should be based in contrast with the results obtained. When assessing the performance of a specific statistical method and / or type, all other dependent and / or relevant criterions should also be considered. The other criterions may be the constraints on the company both in terms of time and resources or it may be in terms of quality and the accessibility of data.

Elucidation of the selected statistical model and its employment in the decision making process: The scope of data mining is not limited to data analysis rather it is also includes the integration of the results so as to facilitate the decision making process of the company. Business awareness, the pulling out of rules and their use in the decision process allows us to proceed from the diagnostic phase to the phase of decision making. Once the model is finalized and tested with an information set, the categorization rule can be generalized. But the inclusion of the data mining process in the business should not be done in haste; rather the same should always be done slowly, setting out sensible and logical aims. The final aim of data mining is to be an integral supporting part of the company's decision making process.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining---A-Short-Introduction&id=6573285

Monday 2 September 2013

How Your Online Information is Stolen - The Art of Web Scraping and Data Harvesting

Web scraping, also known as web/internet harvesting involves the use of a computer program which is able to extract data from another program's display output. The main difference between standard parsing and web scraping is that in it, the output being scraped is meant for display to its human viewers instead of simply input to another program.

Therefore, it isn't generally document or structured for practical parsing. Generally web scraping will require that binary data be ignored - this usually means multimedia data or images - and then formatting the pieces that will confuse the desired goal - the text data. This means that in actually, optical character recognition software is a form of visual web scraper.

Usually a transfer of data occurring between two programs would utilize data structures designed to be processed automatically by computers, saving people from having to do this tedious job themselves. This usually involves formats and protocols with rigid structures that are therefore easy to parse, well documented, compact, and function to minimize duplication and ambiguity. In fact, they are so "computer-based" that they are generally not even readable by humans.

If human readability is desired, then the only automated way to accomplish this kind of a data transfer is by way of web scraping. At first, this was practiced in order to read the text data from the display screen of a computer. It was usually accomplished by reading the memory of the terminal via its auxiliary port, or through a connection between one computer's output port and another computer's input port.

It has therefore become a kind of way to parse the HTML text of web pages. The web scraping program is designed to process the text data that is of interest to the human reader, while identifying and removing any unwanted data, images, and formatting for the web design.

Though web scraping is often done for ethical reasons, it is frequently performed in order to swipe the data of "value" from another person or organization's website in order to apply it to someone else's - or to sabotage the original text altogether. Many efforts are now being put into place by webmasters in order to prevent this form of theft and vandalism.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Your-Online-Information-is-Stolen---The-Art-of-Web-Scraping-and-Data-Harvesting&id=923976