Free Website Backup
For simple web scraping jobs I often prefer a php + mysql bundle putting the project right to the web and working online. But as you work online a problem appears: how to backup your work results? more…
How to Analyze Competitors
There is no doubt that you have to spend time on competitor analysis if you care about your business. Doing this, you may realize many things that you didn’t realize before about the market in which you are laboring, If you are just beginning your business, then you need to analyze your future competitors all the more in order to know how do they do their business and what they are focusing on. more…
SEO Monitoring with Colibri (Review)
Recently I had to choose a tool for keyword monitoring and after reviewing several online services, I ended up with Colibri. It has a nice design and intuitive interface. If you have matured enough to take your SEO more seriously (and even to pay the price for it), this short review may help you to make a choice.
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DeCaptcher Review
Recently we came across a CAPTCHA solving service called DeCaptcher. As we proceed with the new Scraper Test Drive stage, we have encountered some off-the-shelf scrapers that use a 3rd party service for CAPTCHA solving. The DeCaptcher service is the most popular among them.
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TEST DRIVE: CAPTCHA
The new Scraper Test Drive stage is on, called CAPTCHA. What can the scrapers perform to get through the “robot fighters”? The off-the-shelf scrapers are not designed for CAPTCHA solving by default. Furthermore, some stated that “bypassing Captchas was compatible with Internet good ethics”. I agree with this, but for the full Scraper Test Drive taste, we still want to try out the scrapers. more…
Why are JavaScript CAPTCHAs not reliable?
While we did our CAPTCHA TEST DRIVE we realized that those JavaScript captchas we used for testing (like QapTcha and AJAX FANCY CAPTCHA) can be easily bypassed by sending a couple of simple POST requests. more…
Mozenda & Visual Web Ripper online search trends
Continuing our research on the most popular scraping software, I decided to compare Mozenda and Visual Web Ripper on a search trends basis. What is the frequency of searches for these products online over time? I used Google Trends for this purpose, and below I share the current statistics and conclusions. more…
Debuggex Review: get your Regex to play visual
Debuggex is an online Regex testing tool that allows visualization of Regex match algorithms. The visualization feature is good both for the learners who do some Regex exploration and for the experienced users who might want to track the Regex match forward or back. It is also useful for an instant Regex pattern match by highlighting, thus eliminating the need for pressing any buttons to run Regex patterns. This tool is one of a dozen online Regex testers. more…
Fiddler web sniffer Review
The Fiddler web sniffer software is one of several well-known HTTP debugging proxies. It works well, and the proxy nature of the sniffer makes it stand out among other web sniffing tools. more…
Scrape detection and how Visual Web Ripper can help deal with this problem
Recently we have encountered the web scrape detection issues in some of our projects. So as we’ve consulted with the Sequentum developers we present to you some points on this topic. Here are a few lines about web scraping detection and how Visual Web Ripper can help deal with this problem. more…