Web data scraping is the process of fetching or reading the contents of a website and collecting information and content from it. Many businesses, whether small or large now rely on web data scraping for reaching more consumers, promote their products, increasing their sales, and more. In this context, automated tools for web scraping and APIs for data extraction are becoming more and more important. Additionally, with the growing popularity of Python, a Python Data Scraping API is also very valuable and a great addition to a developer’s web extraction tools.
If you start exploring the market and need to find a data scraping API, you’ll be overwhelmed by the number of options out there. The elementary question you ask is which one is the best and which one is the most reliable and robust. Other important considerations include the response times and the features an API offers. To make this decision easier for you, we have compiled a comprehensive guide that will convince you why you should opt for Zenscrape – the best data scraping API.
Table of Contents
What Is The Importance Of Web Scraping?
Web scrapping has numerous advantages for all types of businesses. For example, travel agents can scrape various websites to collect information regarding the places to visit for tourism, health professionals can gather knowledge about different drug options for various diseases, and academics can keep themselves up-to-date with the latest research and findings from different web sources. With web scraping the possibilities are endless. The good news is that becoming a web scrapper is not as difficult as you think.
Zenscrape is a data scraping API available at the APILayer marketplace, which is a trusted source for secure and reliable REST APIs. The Zenscrape API is surprisingly easy to use. Continue reading to discover how you can start using the Zenscrape API.
How Do I Construct The Basic Query Using Zenscrape Data Scraping API?
Zenscrape’s Python data scraping API is extremely simple and easy to use. For the basic query, all you need is a URL parameter and your API key. If you don’t have Zenscrape’s API key, then simply register for a free API key. The basic format of the query in Python looks as follows:
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import requests headers = { "apikey": "YOUR-APIKEY"} params = ( ("url","https://httpbin.org/ip") ); response = requests.get('https://app.zenscrape.com/api/v1/get', headers=headers, params=params); print(response.text) |
The response object is HTML, for example, for the above query you’ll get the following response:
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<html> <head> </head> <body> <pre style="word-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"> { "origin": "80.102.66.13" } </pre> </body> </html> |
You can consult a beginner’s guide in 2021 for web scraping with the Python programming language.
Why Is Zenscrape The Best Python Data Scraping API?
Zenscrape offers powerful APIs that make all your web data extraction and collection processes easier and faster. Zenscrape’s data scraping API takes care of all the problems that developers face when harvesting data from the web. Here are a few features of Zenscrape’s API.
Does Zenscrape Have A Fast Response Time?
Yes absolutely! At Zenscrape, we understand that response times are one of the most important factors that influence a data scraping app. With Zenscrape, you can rest assured that the response time is lightning fast. In fact, if you survey the market, you’ll find that Zenscrape’s APIs are amongst the fastest.
Does Zenscrape’s Python Data Scraping API Offer A Proxy Mode?
Yes absolutely. If you have an app that relies on proxies, then you can use the Zenscrape API’s HTTP proxy interface. In the proxy mode, all you have to do is specify your API key as the username and use any parameters you usually supply as the password. Additionally, you can also use a location parameter to specify a location.
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import requests response = requests.get('https://quotes.toscrape.com/js', proxies=proxy, verify=False); print(response.text) |
What About Zenscrape Premium Proxies?
Zenscrape has a large pool of premium proxies. If you have to collect data and information from sites that are difficult to scrape, then you can use the premium proxy option by setting premium to true. Additionally, you can specify a location parameter to specify a location. An example of using the premium proxy with the location option is shown below:
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import requests headers = { "apikey": "YOUR-APIKEY"} params = ( ("url","https://httpbin.org/ip"), ("premium","true"), ("country","se"), ); response = requests.get('https://app.zenscrape.com/api/v1/get', headers=headers, params=params); print(response.text) |
How Is Cloudflare DDoS Protection Handled By Zenscrape?
Zenscrape gives you unique features to handle situations in which you want to extract data from a website that has Cloudlare DDoS protection enabled. Zenscrape has special capabilities for detecting when Cloudflare DDoS protection is enabled and returns the contents of the page when this protection layer has disappeared. Hence, you don’t have to write any code to handle Cloudflare DDoS protection. It is automatically taken care of by Zenscrape.
Can I Block Resources Of My Choice When Using Zenscrape Python Data Scraping API?
There are situations when developers block certain resources from a web page when they are scraping data from it. It is always helpful for developers to block certain resources from a page when scraping data from it. This gives the developers advantages including a gain in speed. The block_resources option in combination with render=True allows you to block resources of your choice. For example, in the code below stylesheets, images and media have been blocked from rendering.
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import requests headers = { "apikey": "YOUR-APIKEY"} params = ( ("url","https://quotes.toscrape.com/js"), ("render","true"), ("block_resources","stylesheet,image,media"), ); response = requests.get('https://app.zenscrape.com/api/v1/get', headers=headers, params=params); print(response.text) |
Can I Set A Cookie When Using Zenscrape API?
Yes of course! You can easily set a cookie for a particular URL in your request. Simply set keep_headers parameters to a true value. Next, add the cookie name and its corresponding value in the request header, and you are good to go. An example is shown below:
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import requests headers = { "apikey": "YOUR-APIKEY", "Cookie": "SESSIONID=27382738" } params = ( ("url","https://quotes.toscrape.com/cookies"), ("keep_headers","true"), ); response = requests.get('https://app.zenscrape.com/api/v1/get', headers=headers, params=params); print(response.text) |
How Do I Start Using Zenscrape API?
Zenscrape is the best data scraping API. With robust design, fast response time and great features, Zenscrape meets all your web scraping and data extraction needs.
Register now for a Zenscrape account and make the most of your web scraping experience.
