The process of extracting content in the shape of text and images is called website scraping and this technique is used by websites such as price comparison websites, stock exchange related websites, real estate listings etc. which require their data from a wide range of websites showing similar content.
Price comparison websites (as the name indicates) give visitors an option to display products and their prices from a number of merchant websites. This helps visitors to identify which websites are offering the products they are interested in and at what prices. The visitors don’t have to visit each website individually and save time. Once the merchant is identified they can then head off on to the merchant website and make their purchase. Due to the nature of working of price comparison websites they need up to date product pricing from the merchants and they tend to use scraping for this purpose.
Similarly websites which display stock exchange information regarding company stock prices or other company related information and real estate portals which require listings of houses, apartments or plots also require scraping to update their website inventory on a regular basis as visitors require accurate and valid data so that they can make key decisions.
I provide website scraping services to potential clients who require this feature. I have scraped a number of UK sports website while working on a sports goods price comparison website for the UK market as well as a number of Japanese used car exporter websites for specific vehicle information and pricing.