The reason is because that is the right thing to do.

Your brand was created with the purpose of helping your prospects find the right solution to cater to their issues and when you have decided that you want to blog about the COVID-19 situation, its is reasonable to find the right data that can help you educate your prospects better and help build that trust on your brand to be a reliable source of information.

But before we can head to how you can commit this action, let’s first help you identify how to spot the wrong COVID-19 data whether it is with reference to the source or information.

1. SOURCES OF INFORMATION ARE DOUBTFUL

You need to understand which are the relevant sources. All relevant sources will be evident to you such as WHO and more. For instance, any news from the government or health departments will have their name in the ending of the links such as .gov. 

When you have the list of all the relevant sources of information you can rely on, you immediately tend to eliminate the other links which provide the same information.

2. EMAIL ADDRESSES DON’T SEEM VALID

Any email addresses you receive needs to be checked thoroughly. Don’t go on to click any email link. First, understand what is written, whether the email address is valid, you can do that by clicking ‘Compose’, pasting the email address in the ‘to’ section and then clicking on the id. If you see all the symbols in blue, then that email id is relevant.

3. ASKING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

If you believe that the email or the information you view is asking your personal details, immediately back off. Think of it, why would anyone want your personal information in return for some COVID 19 data when that information can also be grasped elsewhere? Stay away from such actions to keep yourself guarded.

Interesting Read : [What Is a Proxy: Web Scraping Basics [2020 Guide]](https://limeproxies.com/blog/what-is-a-proxy-web-scraping/)

4. INDIVIDUALS ACTING SUSPICIOUSLY

Since you are now going to be working from home, you won’t stop engaging with other brands and prospects. Between these two there will be someone who might be a hacker, observe any such activities and ensure that you are away from them. 

5. ASKING TO CONDUCT DOWNLOAD ACTIVITIES

If you are being asked to download COVID 19 apps or any other links which can lead you to the COVID 19 page, until and unless it is from a source that you are confident about, refrain from conducting any actions to it. 

6. FINDING SMALL ERRORS

Lastly, if you find anything suspicious such as the links have a mistake or the information being sent to you has multiple grammatical errors or that the emphasis is more on grasping your personal data instead of helping you learn about the virus, immediately stay away from all of them.

It is super easy to resolve all these issues, all you need to do is:

1. CONSTANTLY UPDATING SOFTWARE

Did you know that if you don’t update your software regularly, you are under a risk of hackers affecting your activities? The reason why you need to update your software frequently is because the updates can help strengthen your actions better. With updates, you are improving or rather enhancing your activities with the use of the software.

2. ACCESSING INFORMATION ONLINE FROM RELEVANT SOURCES ONLY

Not every website or source is fake or spam, there are relevant sources too. As stated earlier, when you start to keep a count of the original sources and follow them for updates or other information, you automatically start to rely on them which means that the minute you see a source which isn’t in your list, you understand that it isn’t the right one.

3. ANY ATTACHMENTS OR EMAILS BEING RECEIVED SHOULD BE THOROUGHLY SCANNED

Not everyone wants to help you with the right intentions. Your hackers could put on a fake act and say that when you click the attachment in that email, you will receive all the information you need but what actually happens is, when you click on that attachment, you are opening the doors to them entering your system. 

Always recheck any unknown email you receive. Ensure that the email address is valid and the content is error-free.

Interesting Read : How web scraping can help in Automobiles?

4. USE RELIABLE SOFTWARES TO PREVENT PHISHING AND RANSOMWARE

Another great way to prevent phishing and ransomware activities is to enforce the use of efficient softwares such as antivirus or spam protection and more. When you indulge in such softwares you are saving your system from falling in the trap. 

You are able to be free from any risks that will cause damage to your system and affect your work activities. 

5. NO SHARING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

If you are asked to share your email address, say NO. If you're asked to share your contact number, say NO. If you're asked to share any details that can further cause you any damage or consequence, say NO. Always safeguard your personal information and do not share it with anyone for any reason. 

Apart from these precautions, there is also another way to capture the right COVID-19 data that can refine your research better. This is a solution that is effective and perfect when it comes to conducting research activity online using restricted platforms. 

It’s time you start implementing the use of ‘Web scraping.’

Web scraping is the process of extracting information from a source or website which contains valuable information and scraping all of that and saving it in your system in the format you would like to view it in such as CSV file and much more.

Previously, if a company needed to extract information from a website, they would opt for the method of copy-pasting. But the drawback here was when it comes to large data the copy-pasting would consume a lot of time to conduct the action and when you copy-paste big data the website slows down alerting the owner of suspicious activity.

But with web scraping, this isn’t the case. In just a few minutes you can easily extract information which in this case is the COVID-19 data without slowing down the website which is why it has grown to be popular. To conduct web scraping activities is convenient, all you need to is:

• Select the website/source you want to scrape
• Choose the data which you needs scraping
• Run the web scraping code
• Save it all in your system

Web scraping is important and also is considered to be an essential tool that can help you write genuine information about COVID-19 data.

Let’s understand the significance better.

1. SCRAPES RELEVANT DATA FROM THE CROWD

There are tens and thousands of data available online but not all that data is relevant to help your business grow. As a brand you know what is required for your brand’s enrichment and hence with web scraping, extracting only that portion of essential data that can help brands succeed faster in their lead capture activities.

For instance, if you want to scrape data from your competitor's websites, web scraping makes that happen without the competitor's website slowing down or having any risk of any brand conducting this action to be detected. 

2. QUICKER IMPROVISATION OF BRAND’S SOLUTIONS

A brand can enhance its solution when it has the right data which exhibits the requirements needed to improvise the solution. Web scraping provides accurate data because all the data being driven is from sources that have been following it or from platforms where prospects have mentioned their opinion on their expectations about a particular product.

All of this contributes a valuable data collection to brands which can help them to improvise their solution better. Since brands have an analysis of what their prospects are expecting, it becomes easier to adapt to the modifications and also plan out the next possible changes before the new trend hits. 

3. RETAINS BRAND SUCCESS

A brand success can only be retained when a band continues to serve the needs of all its prospects even with each changing trend. But how can that happen when the trends have no time of their arrival? With the data collected, brand’s can have an idea, it might not be the exact prediction but a simple analysis of how their solution will be looked upon a few years from now.

Not only that aspect, but brands can also have an analysis of how their prospects will look at a product. For instance maybe the current product offered by a brand is great,it has all the features and the prices are great, with web scraping you can get data which will help you analyze what more are prospects looking from the product for instance maybe they want few features to be automated or they want a specific feature and so on.

Web scraping ensures that you get the data that can help you still cater to the prospect's needs no matter the changes and still retain the success crown for longer. 

4. OUTSELL COMPETITORS

The harsh truth is if you want to be successful, outselling your competitors can win you over some brownie points. With web scraping, you can easily scrape any information which will most likely help your brand to hover in front of your competitors. It could be their pricing strategies, their prospect reviews and any other information which will most likely help in catering to your very own prospect needs.

The market is growing and changing all the time when it comes to conducting activities which can pull your brand closer to assisting their needs better, web scraping is an ideal tool for that action to take place.

5. INDULGES IN LEAD GENERATION ACTIVITIES

To capture the ideal lead for a brand, it takes up a lot of research time to find the right audience which fits a brand’s target audience. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just have a list that consists of the leads which can be interested in what your brand has to offer? Web scraping lets this happen. 

There are moments where you find leads in the most unimagined places, for instance, your blog post comments, or if someone has shared your post and even leads can be found within your peers activities as well such as their engagement sections of the individuals they interact with openly online, all these prospects stand as a potential sales leads for your brand. 

With the help of web scraping, you can easily scrape such information, get their contact details as well as email addresses without breaking a sweat and conduct efficient cold calling and emailing on the spot. This not only saves a lot of time for the sales agents to find them through the crowd but also speeds up the process much quicker than imagined. 

Now that you have knowledge of web scraping and its significance, it’s time to understand the main aspect, how web scraping can help to capture COVID-19 data?

There will be a few websites that are restricted because they have information that cannot be shared. These are considered to be real information which is why it isn’t easily accessible. 

What you can do is with a web scraping process, you can scrape that information and save it in your system in the format you like to view it in such as CSV file or more. You can then use that data to write about multiple COVID-19 topics or news. The information will be relevant and will help you reach out to the news which your prospects need to hear.

Interesting Read : How can web scraping help in efficient growth hacking?

Now while web scraping is great to do this action, you need to secure the process as well. There are chances of you still being caught since you are conducting this process from a restricted source platform.

You can secure your actions better with the help of a proxy server.

Proxy servers stand between a user and the website it wants to access. When a user sends a request to view a restricted website the proxy server will receive the request first and then send it to the website. The reason why a proxy server receives it first is that it changes the IP address.

Many times you get blocked when viewing restricted sources of information because your IP address speaks about the location you are in. What a proxy server does is it helps to eliminate that issue by hiding your actual identity and giving another one.

When it comes to web scraping for your business activities, proxy servers are beneficial. While you continue to scrape the multiple websites, proxy servers ensure that your identity is hidden and that the scraping activity conducts quicker. 

So, you can go on to scrape as many COVID-19 sources and still have the proxy server hide your identity without any issues or risks attached. 

It’s time for you to get started now. Using the top web scraping languages you can now conduct your COVID-19 data capture better.

1. PYTHON

Python is one of the most common coding languages. With reference to web scraping languages, this is popularly used for such a process. For any web scraping activities, Python is considered to be the finest in ensuring that this process is conducted without any errors.

Factors:

1. Beneficial tool for web scraping because it includes two impactful frameworks which matters while conducting this process, Scrapy, and Beautiful Soup.
2. The use of ‘Beautiful Soup’ application in python is intended for quick and efficient data extraction practices.
3. It contains advanced web scraping libraries which makes Python a better hit when compared to the remaining web scraping languages.
4. It contains a variety of the finest data visualization libraries for users like you to function better with.

2. NODE.JS

Node.js is most suited for data crawling activities that practice dynamic coding activities. It also supports distributed crawling practices. Node.js uses Javascript to conduct non-blocking applications which can help enhance multiple simultaneous events that would be taking place. 

Factors:

1. Beneficial for streaming activities
2. Can conduct API’s as well as socket-based activities
3. Has a built-in library
4. Can conduct basic web scraping data extraction activities
5. Has a basic stable communication

3. RUBY

Ruby is considered to be one of the open-source programming languages. It has a user-friendly syntax which is easy to understand and can be practiced and applied without any hassles. The greatest feature of Ruby is that it consists of multiple languages such as Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, Lip along with another new language. Ruby is well aware of how it needs to balance functional programming with the assistance of imperative programming.

Factors:

1. It is a simple web scraping languages
2. It is more on the productive process
3. No signs of code repetition take place
4. You require less writing for such a language
5. This language is supported by a community of users
6. Supports multithreading

4. C & C++

C and C++ are a great execution solution but it can be costly when it comes to conducting web scraping. Prowebscraper recommends, ‘’it is not advisable to use these languages to set up a crawler unless it’s a specialized organization that you have in mind, focusing only on extracting data.’’

Factors:

1 . Simple to understand

2. Can write own HTML parsing library according to your requirements
3. Can conduct such a web scraping language better with dynamic coding
4. It can help to parallelize any scraper you use without any effort

5. PHP

PHP may not be able to be the ideal choice when it comes to the creation of a crawler program. In order to extract information such as graphics, images, videos, and other visual forms, using a CURL library is better. The best thing about the curl library is that it can help to transfer files with the help of protocol lists which have HTTP and FTP in it. Having this can help you in the creation of web spiders which could be utilized to download any kind of information from the online platform.

Factors:

1. Uses 39 MB of RAMusage
2. Uses 3% of CPU usage
3. It runs 723 pages per 10 minutes