There is a huge difference between screen scraping and data mining. Basically, screen scraping allows you to obtain information while data mining on the other hand allows you to analyze the information you obtain. Before the advent of the internet, screen scraping literally meant scraping off or extracting information from text so it could be analyzed. Today, screen scraping is basically used to scrape information off the web. With that, specially designed programs and applications crawl through websites to pull out data needed by individuals doing the scraping. This is usually done when a person wants to build websites for price and product comparison, archiving web pages, or acquiring texts so it can be easily evaluated and filtered.
When you perform a screen scraping, you are able to scrape off data more directly. This is also one of the fastest ways to obtain data since the process is fully automated. Different types of screen scraping services can offer different ways of obtaining information. This is usually the solution especially when the website that is subject for scraping has several barriers designed to block this type of automated activity. Some screen scraping services offer text grepping and common expression matching. Extracting information from the web can be done through a UNIX grep command or other related techniques for expression matching. Some services offer web scraping applications that can be used to customize and tailor fit web based scraping solutions.
These applications can try to automatically distinguish the data structure of a particular page or offer a recording interface that significantly reduces the need to create screen scraping codes manually or other scraping functions that can be utilized to take out and convert web content as well as database interfaces that could accumulate the scraped information using local databanks.On the other hand, data mining is basically the process of automatically searching large caches of information and data for patterns. This means that you already have the information and what you only need to do is to analyze the contents to find the useful things you need. This is very different with screen scraping wherein you still need to look for the data before you can analyze it.
Data mining also involves a lot of complicated algorithms often based on various statistical methods. This process has nothing to do with how you obtain the data. All it cares about is analyzing what is available for evaluation. Screen scraping is often mistaken for data mining where in fact these are two different things. Today, there are online services that offer screen scraping. Depending on what you need, you can have it custom tailored to meet your specific needs and perform precisely the tasks you want. Finding reliable screen scraping services is not difficult and you can simply search them online and find the right company that can have the right solution for your needs.
Source: http://www.fetch.com/screen-scraping-article/
When you perform a screen scraping, you are able to scrape off data more directly. This is also one of the fastest ways to obtain data since the process is fully automated. Different types of screen scraping services can offer different ways of obtaining information. This is usually the solution especially when the website that is subject for scraping has several barriers designed to block this type of automated activity. Some screen scraping services offer text grepping and common expression matching. Extracting information from the web can be done through a UNIX grep command or other related techniques for expression matching. Some services offer web scraping applications that can be used to customize and tailor fit web based scraping solutions.
These applications can try to automatically distinguish the data structure of a particular page or offer a recording interface that significantly reduces the need to create screen scraping codes manually or other scraping functions that can be utilized to take out and convert web content as well as database interfaces that could accumulate the scraped information using local databanks.On the other hand, data mining is basically the process of automatically searching large caches of information and data for patterns. This means that you already have the information and what you only need to do is to analyze the contents to find the useful things you need. This is very different with screen scraping wherein you still need to look for the data before you can analyze it.
Data mining also involves a lot of complicated algorithms often based on various statistical methods. This process has nothing to do with how you obtain the data. All it cares about is analyzing what is available for evaluation. Screen scraping is often mistaken for data mining where in fact these are two different things. Today, there are online services that offer screen scraping. Depending on what you need, you can have it custom tailored to meet your specific needs and perform precisely the tasks you want. Finding reliable screen scraping services is not difficult and you can simply search them online and find the right company that can have the right solution for your needs.
Source: http://www.fetch.com/screen-scraping-article/
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