Mozenda Blog

Web data extraction is commonly used by companies for market research.  In other words, companies work to get company contact information such as phone, fax, and e-mail, as well as other company demographic information, production items, and anything else that could be used to sell products.  But this is not the only way web data extraction can be used.  Many of the new web data extraction software programs on the market are chock full of interesting goodies that make it more than just an extraction tool.

For one thing, web data extraction programs can impart your own company software on thousands of PCs already set up with your company information included.  It will automate the program files of numerous small programs into one large installation application that can then be distributed out.  Web data extraction works both ways when you have the right web data extraction program to work with.

A good web data extraction program can help you with detailed product testing and allows you to chain together tasks that are executed based on your parameters alone.  This helps you determine whether or not the web data extraction is functioning properly when you send it out to search for the information you need on the Internet.  It can help you tweak your programming and you have immediate results without having to make complicated changes over and over again.

If you need to move data from an obsolete system to a newer one, or from an incompatible system or website, the web data extraction program can extract the information for you using a variety of techniques, including screen scraping.  It can send it to the computer system you need it on.  This saves many companies time, keeping them from having someone rekey all of the data and losing information or having costly mistakes.

Web extraction programs can pull down information from websites that you check every day and dump the information into a spreadsheet for you, saving you the time it takes to check the same sites day in and day out.  It can remember your passwords and login for you, or if you need items submitted to search engines, good web extraction programs can provide you with this service.  Once again, you save time and effort by automating some of the mundane and repetitive tasks you do with your web data extraction program.

You can import data from your other company programs into your web data extraction program and automate the running of inventory checks, customer record updates, report generation, and more.  You simply program a macro like you would for web data extraction and screen scraping but use your company data instead, allowing the macro to search the company system.

Web data extraction programs are not limited to surfing the Internet.  You can use it to search for items within your own company, automate a search on all of the websites you check on a daily basis, such as e-Bay, and automate other programs for distribution.  It offers you more than just market research and demographics, and it can help save your company time and money.