Business Web Harvesting Tools and Anonymous Proxy Servers

What is Web harvesting?

Web harvesting is the act of data collection off Web sites, typically for data analysis. It can be used for competitive intelligence, blogging, financial analysis, etc. Web harvesting tools have made it easier to pull together information on competitors including press releases, prices and financial data of all types. The difficulty for Web harvesters comes when their target Web sites use a technique called IP blocking. Web sites can detect large amounts of traffic coming from one IP address and block the Web harvesters with that IP address from accessing their site altogether. This is when anonymous IP proxies from Anonymizer can assist.

How do anonymous proxy servers help?

Anonymous IP proxy servers, or anonymous proxies, assist with Web scraping by hiding IP addresses of the scraper bot or robot. By using an IP proxy server, the IP address is not detected by the target Web site. Since they are not detected as a competitor or Web scraper / Web harvester, the Web scraper bot is given access to the site content. Anonymizer’s anonymous proxy servers rotate IP addresses so even if the target site is watching the frequency of hits, your bot or robot will be able to finish the job because its IP address will be changing frequently.

What other names is Web harvesting known as?

Web harvesting has a variety of other names that you may be familiar with. Some more common terms are data collection, data warehousing, Web scraping, data mining, and data aggregation.

Why do companies use Web harvesting?

Web harvesting can be used to gather competitive information such as product descriptions, pricing information, strategic plans for a company’s future and the company direction. Web harvesting can also be a means of data collection for aggregation purposes by partners, resellers or even news Web sites.

Contact Anonymizer now to learn how our anonymous IP proxies can help you collect accurate data with your Web harvesting activities.