A real-time crawler is a tool for data collection and is meant specifically for use with search engines and e-commerce websites. In other words, you can say a real-time crawler is an advanced form of web scraper that is meant for the extraction of heavy data.

How Does It Work?

• A request is sent to a real-time crawler
• A real-time crawler gets the necessary information
• The requested web data is sent back to the client

Data Delivery

• Using real-time data delivery method, the required data is gotten on the same connection
• By this, the HTTPS connection you use in submitting your request is the same through which you will get your data. So you get real-time data extraction

Callback Data Delivery Method

• Using the callback data delivery method takes away the need to keep an open connection or to check your task status. It's more convenient as a real-time crawler sends you a notification when the data you need is ready
• Note that to use this data delivery method, you will need to set up a callback server. After doing that you can then create a job request and send to a real-time crawler, which will then return the job info and begin collecting the required data
• Once the requested data is ready, the real-time crawler notifies you by sending a POST request to your machine with a URL to download the data in JSON or HTML format

1. Higher Chances of Success

Data extraction usually faces the problem of blocked user IP which could put an end to the process. This isn’t the case with a real-time crawler as it has a large pool of IPs that eliminates chances of delays and allows you to extract the necessary data you require. So with a real-time crawler, you can expect complete success and all the necessary data you need.

2. Ease of Use

A real-time crawler is easy to use and straightforward, not needing any special skills or much tech knowledge. All you have to do is provide the tool with a URL and it will feed you with properly formatted data that can be analyzed and put into use.

3. It’s Cheaper

You can choose to build your data collection program but it will not only demand time and skilled manpower, but it will require money. But with a real-time crawler, all the requirements in building your program would be cut down. There won’t be any need for many powerful servers, and the cost of necessary infrastructure would also be reduced.

Data shows that the number of companies that try to improve the efficiency of data collection while reducing cost is on the rise, and they do this by the use of tools like a real-time crawler. This saves the cost of having to maintain an expensive proxy infrastructure and data collection program. So instead of having to constantly worry about avoiding bot detection, and watching out for changes to the site’s layout, companies just make use of the data they get from the real-time crawler.

A real-time crawler also allows you to extract as much as you want, whenever you need to with ease. This effortless data extraction from search engines and e-commerce sites allows clients to use real-time crawlers for other purposes like SEO monitoring and pricing intelligence.

Why You Should Choose Real-Time Crawler for Pricing Intelligence

For pricing intelligence, a real-time crawler is more ideal when compared to residential proxies or datacenter proxies because you can achieve more by doing less. You can easily integrate it, its cost-efficient, very reliable, and also easily scalable.

Real-Time Crawler for SEO Monitoring

A real-time crawler has so many attractive features that make it beneficial for use with search engines. One such endearing feature is the pricing which is optimized as you only have to pay per page rather than per IP or traffic. It’s easy to implement, and you would only need minor server maintenance.

Residential proxies are not compared here because they are not cost-efficient. Web scraping consumes a lot of traffic, and since you pay for residential proxies per data traffic and not per IP, you spend more. SEO monitoring also relies less on information based on location and so the use of country-level targeting is not ideal.

Real-Time Crawler E-Commerce Websites Scraping

A real-time crawler was made to support the data collection needs of e-commerce websites and is currently able to support scraping of data from the most popular online markets.

You can use a real-time crawler to extract data from product offer listing pages, reviews, product pages, questions and answers, search results, or any URL you have in mind. It supports all localized domains and pagination and also stores historical pricing data.

Real-Time Crawler Search Engines Scraping

A real-time crawler isn’t just made to support e-commerce websites but also popular search engines. You can get paid and organic SERP data, and also ranking data for any keyword of your choice either in the raw HTML format, or JSON format.

With a real-time crawler for search engines, you will find the most profitable keywords and follow up on their performance. No matter the number of requests for any location or keyword, your query would be supported.