Web Scraping Tool to Extract Data from Websites – Agenty
Web Scraping Tool to Extract Data from Websites
Best web scraping software
to scrape data
from websites anonymously.
Agenty’s powerful, scalable and SaaS based web data scraping tool
that makes it easy to extract data from websites of choices,
no matter the complexity of web.
Point and Click
Setup your web scraping agents using point-and-click Chrome extension designed to create web scraping agents with few clicks of mouse. No coding required!
See setup guide
Anonymous Web Scraping
Automatic IP rotation and highly anonymous proxies to scrape any website. Extract content as seen by real-human in different location, using our geo-based IPs.
See proxies docs
Batch URL Crawling
Extract data from unlimited webpages in single agent. Simply enter the website URLs in agent input, or upload a URL list to extract batch URLs automatically.
Learn how
Scheduling
Flexible scheduling option to schedule your web scraping agents to run every hour, daily, weekly or any particular day(s) in a week.
See scheduling docs
Crawl Website with Login
Pass your credentials in agent configuration to authenticate and get data from websites that requires login to access the page you are crawling.
See login docs
Crawling History
Go to history tab to see or download all your web scraping jobs result, for all agents. Accessible by job_id and execution date.
See docs
Integrations
12+ integrations to trigger email notification, or send your scraped data to SFTP, Amazon S3, Dropbox, Webhook, Google spreadsheet, and more…
See integrations
Advance Scripting
Unlimited possibility with scripting. Write your own custom logic to modify the scraping agent result (or the input) using C# programming language.
See scripting docs
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have web scraping example agents?
Yes, we do have 100+ web scraping examples to practice and learn web scraping using Agenty scraping agents. Just login to your account and go to Agents > New > Sample tab to access web scraping examples.
How can I learn web scraping using Agenty?
What web scraping techniques are available on Agenty?
Agenty supports all types of web scraping techniques to extract data from web. For example, you can use scraping agents to extract data using CSS selectors, REGEX, XPath, JSONPath etc.
Can you help me in creating my web scraping agents?
Yes, we do have expert support team where you can order a one-time scraping agent creation or can use managed services. Contact sales to request a quote.
Do you have free trial for web scraping?
Yes, we have 14 days free trial with 100 pages credit to try Agenty.
Do you have web scraping API?
Yes, our API is REST based and you can use it in any programming language like Python, PHP, C#, Java etc to start web scraping job, add URL, download result and more.
Can I scrape dynamic website require JavaScript?
Yes, JavaScript render option is enabled by default in all scraping agents. And you can control it in setting tab to enable-disable as per your need.
Can I use web scraping agents on Windows, MAC or Linux?
Yes, Agenty’s scraping agent is SaaS based application and you can use it online on any operating system. All you need is a browser to access
Do you offer web scraping services as well?
Yes, our web scraping service is designed for enterprises to outsource their web scraping project to Agenty. See this page to learn more about enterprise-level web scraping service features.
Case Study: Statistical department of Slovenia
The Statistical department of Slovenia tracks and monitor the retail products prices online, that often have thousands of SKUs from hundreds of websites.
See how the department was able to use Agenty to automate their web data scraping, transformation and validation using our scraping agents to extract prices from ecommerce websites.
Read the Case Study
Join thousands of companies who use Agenty for web data scraping
Request a demo to get your web scraping project managed by Agenty team.
User-Agents For Web Scraping 101 – Data Collection
Using the correct user agent when performing data scraping tasks is crucial to your success in collecting your target data while avoiding being blocked. This is the only guide you will need to get started.
03-Dec-2020
In this post you will learn:
What is a user agent?
Why should you use a user agent?
Tips to avoid getting your user agent banned when scraping
The term refers to any piece of software that facilitates end-user interaction with web content. A user agent (UA) string is a text that the client computer software sends through a request.
The user agent string helps the destination server identify which browser, type of device, and operating system is being used. For example, the string tells the server you are using Chrome browser and Windows 10 on your computer. The server can then use this information to adjust the response for the type of device, OS, and browser.
Most browsers send a user agent header in the following format, though there’s not much consistency in how user agents are chosen:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5. 0 () ()Image source: Bright Data
Every browser adds its own comment components, such as platform or RV: release version. Mozilla offers examples of strings to be used for crawlers:
Mozilla/5. 0 (compatible; Googlebot/2. 1; +)Image source: Bright Data
You can learn more about the different strings you can use for the Mozilla browser on their developers’ site.
Below you can find examples from Chrome’s developer site on how the UA string format looks for different devices and browsers:
Chrome for Android
Phone UA:
Mozilla/5. 0 (Linux;;)AppleWebKit/ (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/Mobile Safari/
Image source: Bright Data
Tablet UA:
Mozilla/5. 0 (Linux;;)AppleWebKit/(KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/Safari/Image source: Bright Data
When you are web scraping, sometimes you will find that the webserver blocks certain user agents. This is mostly because it identifies the origin as a bot and certain websites don’t allow bot crawlers or scrapers. More sophisticated websites do this the other way around ie they only allow user agents they think are valid to perform crawling jobs. The really sophisticated ones check that the browser behavior actually matches the user agent you claim.
You may think that the correct solution would be not setting a user agent in your requests. However, this causes tools to use a default UA. In many cases, the destination web server has it blacklisted and blocks it.
So how do you ensure your user agent doesn’t get banned?
Tips to avoid getting your UA banned when scraping:
#1: Use a real user agent
If your user agent doesn’t belong to a major browser, some websites will block its requests. Many bot-based web scrapers skip the step of defining a UA, with the consequence of being detected and banned for missing the wrong/default UA.
You can avoid this problem by setting a widely used UA for your web crawler. You can find a large list of popular user agents here. You can compile a list of popular strings and rotate them by performing a cURL request for a website. Nevertheless, we recommend using your browser’s user agent because your browser behavior is more likely to match what is expected from the user agent if you don’t change it too much.
#2: Rotate user agents
When you make numerous requests while web scraping, you should randomize them. This will minimize the possibility of the web server identifying and blocking your UAs.
How do you randomize requests?
One solution would be changing the request IP address using rotating proxies. This way, you send a different set of headers every single time. On the web server end, it will look like the request is coming from different computers and different browsers.
Pro tip: A user agent is a header, but headers include much more than just user agents. You can’t just send random headers, you need to make sure that the user agent you send matches the headers you’re sending.
You can use to check if the headers you’re sending match what’s expected for the user agent.
How to rotate user agents
First, you need to collect a list of user agent strings. We recommend using strings from real browsers, which can be found here. The next step is adding the strings to a Python List. And finally, defining that every request picks a random string from the list.
You can see an example of how to rotate user agents using Python 3 and Selenium 4 in this stack overflow discussion. The code example looks like this:
Image source: Bright DataWhichever program or method you choose to use to rotate your UA headers, you should follow the same techniques to avoid getting detected and blocked:
#1: Rotate a full set of headers that are associated with each UA
#2: Send headers in the order a real browser typically would
#3: Use the previous page you visited as a ‘referrer header’
Pro tip: You need to make sure the IP address and cookies don’t change when using a referrer header. Ideally, you’d actually visit the previous page so that there is a record of it on your target server.
#3: Rotate use agents using a Proxy
You can avoid the headache and hassle of having to manually define lists and rotating IPs manually by using a rotating proxy network. Proxies have the capability of setting up automatic IP rotation and UA string rotation. This means that your requests look like they originated from a variety of web browsers. This severely decreases blockages and increases success rates as requests appear to have originated from real web users. Keep in mind that only very specific proxies that employ Data Unlocking technology have the ability to properly manage and rotate your user agents.
The Bottom Line
Since most websites block requests missing a valid or recognizable browser user agent, learning how to properly rotate UA is important in avoiding site blocks. Using the correct user agent will tell your target website that your request came from a valid origin, enabling you to freely collect data from your desired target sites.
Josh Vanderwillik | Product Manager Josh is a product manager at Bright Data working on next-gen technology,
specifically in the field of automated data collection: building fingerprint-proof, high
scale web crawlers that are simple to use. He is an active participant in global
webinars which help companies learn cutting edge data collection techniques, and
is now expanding that knowledge base through blogging.
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Agenty Pricing, Alternatives & More 2021 – Capterra
Agenty ReviewsShowing all 4 reviewsZach Marketing and Advertising, 1-10 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months“Great Customer Support! ”Pros: Loved the support we were given to ensure our scripting fit our needs and was further optimized for processing speed. Cons: Seemed a little buggy at first, but support cleared up any issues we were having right awayVendor ResponseBy Agenty Analytics on September 17, 2021Hi Zach,
Thanks for your review, it was nice to help you in your scraping agent.
Agenty 2. 0 is coming soon with a lots of improvements to self-troubleshoot and debug scraping issues.
Thanks,
VikashSreeraj nfidentialMarket Research, 10, 001+ employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months“The worst administration possible”Overall: 1. Management doesn’t have the decency to communicate to stakeholders
2. Extremely bad leadership
3. Worst sales team ever Pros: Absolutely nothing. They boast of robustness but fail Cons: 1. Pathetic experience in case of competition
2. Worst management possible
Vendor ResponseBy Agenty Analytics on September 17, 2021Hi Sreeraj,
I don’t see any ticket with your name, please contact me or and we’ll definitely help to fix your issues.
Thanks
VikashPavlos, 1-10 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months“If you have any questions they will NOT help you”Overall: If I can give a tip. Do not become an Agenty partner! Pros: The concept itself is very useful, but its effects could be much betterCons: -They don’t help you even though we have the most expensive plan.
– The [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] is very rude and will not help you
– We pay approximately $ 300 per month that includes customer service. We compose an email with questions for [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] and he just answers “NO” not even a ResponseBy Agenty Analytics on September 17, 2021Hi Pavlos,
VikashAdam W. VPComputer Software, 51-200 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months“Very Useful Product”Overall: Extracting contactsPros: You can collect data from links within the original Too many options for a novice user. It was difficult for me to digest the ResponseBy Agenty Analytics on September 20, 2021Hi Adam,
Thanks for your review. Yup, Agenty has everything for complex scraping projects to handle everything comes in the way to scrape the data correctly!