Businesses rely on information to make well-informed decisions and stay ahead of their competitors. As such, web scraping tools were developed to assist in collecting information, and many businesses are even willing to pay for the data. As such, web scraping has turned into a viable way to make money. But how do you make money from web scraping?
In this article, we’ll explore the income solutions presented by web scraping and the different ways you can use the data collected to make money. We’ll also look at the tools you need to get started, such as a residential proxy server. You might even need a location-specific one, like an Indian proxy, to target other markets. Luckily, many best proxy lists are available to help you choose a good proxy provider.
We’ll cover the following topics related to monetizing your data collection efforts:
- What is web scraping, and can you make an income from it?
- Ways to make money from web scraping
- What do you need to get started?
What Is Web Scraping And Can You Make An Income From It?
Web scraping, or web harvesting as it’s also referred to, is an automated data collection process. These specialized tools can be used to collect large amounts of data across the internet from websites, search engines and various other platforms. The tools then used data parsing to compile the information into a format that can be analyzed and used for various purposes such as market research, price comparisons, and monitoring competitors.
The big data market and related analytics are set to reach $103 billion by 2023. Businesses rely on more data to improve their offerings, monitor the markets and trends, and even their reputations. Poor data quality costs businesses trillions each year, so they’re eager for high-quality information and willing to pay for it. You can make money in this industry if you understand what makes good quality data and the type of information businesses are looking for.
Ways To Make Money From Web Scraping
Let’s take a look at a few of the ways that individuals can make money by collecting high-quality data.
Offering Scraping Or Market Research Services
Individuals can offer scraping or market research services on freelancing platforms like Fiverr or Upwork. These platforms can be competitive, but if you can provide high-quality data useful to businesses, you can quickly build a reputation and be flooded with work opportunities. If you want to avoid the competition and you have an understanding of the type of data businesses might find useful, you can reach out to them directly and try to sell the information.
Reselling
Reselling products for a profit is a fun side hustle but requires quick action and careful monitoring of the markets for the best deals on high-value items with a good resale value, like limited edition sneakers. You can use your web scraping tools to find the best deals and keep an eye on the market to know when to sell.
Making A Price Comparison Website
If you have some coding experience, you can even build your own price comparison website to monetize. This is a great option to make a residual income. It may require a time investment upfront, but once everything is set up, it requires little intervention. A web scraping tool is essential to ensure the most recent and best prices are featured.
What Do You Need To Get Started?
Let’s take a look at the essential tools you’ll need to start making money with web scraping.
Web Scraper
You’ll need a reliable web scraper to collect your data. You can build your own by using one of the many available open-source codes. You’ll have to know how to code for this option. If you don’t know to code, you can use one of the many pre-built web scrapers like Octoparse, Parsehub, or ScraperAPI.
Residential Proxy
Residential proxies might have a bit slower initial speeds than data center proxies. However, they also have a higher data access rate and are perfect for accessing local data since they can be located anywhere. For example, you can use an India proxy to access data only available in India. Using an India proxy changes your IP to an address of a device located in the country, so even if you’re located somewhere else, you can still collect local data. Residential proxies also allow a huge data gathering scale as there are tens of millions of IP addresses in these networks, making the gathering potential massive.
Final Thoughts
We live in exciting times where anyone can make a profit from collecting and selling data. However, in order to be successful, you’ll require the right tools, such as reliable scrapers and proxies, and you need to have a keen sense of what type of data is valuable and how to collect high-quality information.
