Web Data Extraction

Web Data Extraction

The Internet as we know today is a repository of information that can be accessed across geographical societies. In just over two decades, the Web has moved from a university curiosity to a fundamental research, marketing and communications vehicle that impinges upon the everyday life of most people in all over the world. It is accessed by over 16% of the population of the world spanning over 233 countries.

As the amount of information on the Web grows, that information becomes ever harder to keep track of and use. Compounding the matter is this information is spread over billions of Web pages, each with its own independent structure and format. So how do you find the information you're looking for in a useful format - and do it quickly and easily without breaking the bank?

Search Isn't Enough

Search engines are a big help, but they can do only part of the work, and they are hard-pressed to keep up with daily changes. For all the power of Google and its kin, all that search engines can do is locate information and point to it. They go only two or three levels deep into a Web site to find information and then return URLs. Search Engines cannot retrieve information from deep-web, information that is available only after filling in some sort of registration form and logging, and store it in a desirable format. In order to save the information in a desirable format or a particular application, after using the search engine to locate data, you still have to do the following tasks to capture the information you need:

· Scan the content until you find the information.

· Mark the information (usually by highlighting with a mouse).

· Switch to another application (such as a spreadsheet, database or word processor).

· Paste the information into that application.

Its not all copy and paste

Consider the scenario of a company is looking to build up an email marketing list of over 100,000 thousand names and email addresses from a public group. It will take up over 28 man-hours if the person manages to copy and paste the Name and Email in 1 second, translating to over $500 in wages only, not to mention the other costs associated with it. Time involved in copying a record is directly proportion to the number of fields of data that has to copy/pasted.

Is there any Alternative to copy-paste?

A better solution, especially for companies that are aiming to exploit a broad swath of data about markets or competitors available on the Internet, lies with usage of custom Web harvesting software and tools.

Web harvesting software automatically extracts information from the Web and picks up where search engines leave off, doing the work the search engine can't. Extraction tools automate the reading, the copying and pasting necessary to collect information for further use. The software mimics the human interaction with the website and gathers data in a manner as if the website is being browsed. Web Harvesting software only navigate the website to locate, filter and copy the required data at much higher speeds that is humanly possible. Advanced software even able to browse the website and gather data silently without leaving the footprints of access.

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What is Data Mining? Why Data Mining is Important?

What is Data Mining? Why Data Mining is Important?

Searching, Collecting, Filtering and Analyzing of data define as data mining. The large amount of information can be retrieved from wide range of form such as different data relationships, patterns or any significant statistical co-relations. Today the advent of computers, large databases and the internet is make easier way to collect millions, billions and even trillions of pieces of data that can be systematically analyzed to help look for relationships and to seek solutions to difficult problems.

The government, private company, large organization and all businesses are looking for large volume of information collection for research and business development. These all collected data can be stored by them to future use. Such kind of information is most important whenever it is require. It will take very much time for searching and find require information from the internet or any other resources.

Here is an overview of data mining services inclusion:

* Market research, product research, survey and analysis
* Collection information about investors, funds and investments
* Forums, blogs and other resources for customer views/opinions
* Scanning large volumes of data
* Information extraction
* Pre-processing of data from the data warehouse
* Meta data extraction
* Web data online mining services
* data online mining research
* Online newspaper and news sources information research
* Excel sheet presentation of data collected from online sources
* Competitor analysis
* data mining books
* Information interpretation
* Updating collected data

After applying the process of data mining, you can easily information extract from filtered information and processing the refining the information. This data process is mainly divided into 3 sections; pre-processing, mining and validation. In short, data online mining is a process of converting data into authentic information.

The most important is that it takes much time to find important information from the data. If you want to grow your business rapidly, you must take quick and accurate decisions to grab timely available opportunities.

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Why is web scraping worldwide used

Why is web scraping worldwide used

Nowadays a huge amount of information is placed online, and alongside with it, appeared new techniques and software that analyse and extract it. Such a software technique is web scraping, which simulates human exploration of the World Wide Web. The software that does this either implements the low-level Hypertext Transfer Protocol or embeds a web browser. Its main goal is to automatically collect information from the World Wide Web. This process requires semantic understanding, text processing, artificial intelligence and a close interaction between human and computer. This technique is widely used by business owners that want to find new ways of increasing their profit and using the relevant marketing strategies.

Web scraping is important for successful businesses because it provides three categories of information: web content, web usage and web structure. This means that it extracts information from web pages, server logs, links between pages and people, and browser activity data. This helps companies having access to the needed data, because web scrapping services transform unstructured data into structured data. The direct result of this process is seen on the outcome of the businesses. Companies set up easy web scraping programs that have the purpose to provide reliable and efficient information for its users. These services make this process much easier. Because companies are the ones that focused their energy to implement such a program, they benefit from multiple advantages. The companies that want to have a close relation with their clients, have the opportunity to send notifications to their customers that include promotions, price changes, or the launching of a new product. When using web scraping, companies have the opportunity of comparing their product prices with the ones of the similar ones.

Web data extraction proves to be very useful when meteorologists want to monitor weather changes. The companies that use this type of information extraction have also other advantages alongside with the ones listed above. This process allows them to transform page contents according to their needs, and they can be sure that the data collected is reliable and accurate. They can retrieve the data from their websites, because this process can be used with both dynamic and static pages. Web data extraction is very valuable because it is able to recognize semantic annotation. The companies that need complicated data can get it by using web scraping, and this leads to minimizing costs and more sales. Companies choose to use marketing intelligence because it helps them increase their profit through good business practices. The companies that use these services are the ones that practice online shipping, because they want to provide their clients information about services, terms of services and products. Other type of businesses that uses this service are stores, which supply their products online. This service helps them provide information about their services and products, but if it is a more complex store, then it helps them offer their clients details about their procedures and head offices. Web scraping proves to be a successful way of achieving success in many domains.

Source: http://www.amazines.com/article_detail.cfm/6193234?articleid=6193234

Benefits of Predictive Analytics and Data Mining Services

Benefits of Predictive Analytics and Data Mining Services

Predictive Analytics is the process of dealing with variety of data and apply various mathematical formulas to discover the best decision for a given situation. Predictive analytics gives your company a competitive edge and can be used to improve ROI substantially. It is the decision science that removes guesswork out of the decision-making process and applies proven scientific guidelines to find right solution in the shortest time possible.

Predictive analytics can be helpful in answering questions like:

-  Who are most likely to respond to your offer?
-  Who are most likely to ignore?
-  Who are most likely to discontinue your service?
-  How much a consumer will spend on your product?
-  Which transaction is a fraud?
-  Which insurance claim is a fraudulent?
-  What resource should I dedicate at a given time?

Benefits of Data mining include:

-  Better understanding of customer behavior propels better decision
-  Profitable customers can be spotted fast and served accordingly
-  Generate more business by reaching hidden markets
-  Target your Marketing message more effectively
-  Helps in minimizing risk and improves ROI.
-  Improve profitability by detecting abnormal patterns in sales, claims, transactions etc
-  Improved customer service and confidence
-  Significant reduction in Direct Marketing expenses

Basic steps of Predictive Analytics are as follows:

-  Spot the business problem or goal
-  Explore various data sources such as transaction history, user demography, catalog details, etc)
-  Extract different data patterns from the above data
-  Build a sample model based on data & problem
-  Classify data, find valuable factors, generate new variables
-  Construct a Predictive model using sample
-  Validate and Deploy this Model

Standard techniques used for it are:

-  Decision Tree
-  Multi-purpose Scaling
-  Linear Regressions
-  Logistic Regressions
-  Factor Analytics
-  Genetic Algorithms
-  Cluster Analytics
-  Product Association

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Facts on Data Mining

Facts on Data Mining

Data mining is the process of examining a data set to extract certain patterns. Companies use this process to determine the outcome of their existing goals. They summarize this information into useful methods to create revenue and/or cut costs. When search engines are accessed, they begin to build lists of links from the first page it accesses. It continues this process throughout the site until it reaches the root page. This data not only includes text, but also numbers and facts.

Data mining focuses on consumers in relation to both "internal" (price, product positioning), and "external" (competition, demographics) factors which help determine consumer price, customer satisfaction, and corporate profits. It also provides a link between separate transactions and analytical systems. Four types of relationships are sought with data mining:

o Classes - information used to increase traffic
o Clusters - grouped to determine consumer preferences or logical relationships
o Associations - used to group products normally bought together (i.e., bacon, eggs; milk, bread)
o Patterns - used to anticipate behavior trends

This process provides numerous benefits to businesses, governments, society, and especially individuals as a whole. It starts with a cleaning process which removes errors and ensures consistency. Algorithms are then used to "mine" the data to establish patterns.

 Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Facts-on-Data-Mining&id=3640795

Resume Extraction: To Grab Best Candidate

Resume Extraction: To Grab Best Candidate

Selecting the eligible and potential employee for the organization is the most significant task of any company. Success rate of any company totally depends on the assortment of talented and experienced candidates. Quality is of prime significance than quantity and for this, having the best resume analyzer is a good idea. The tasks related to recruitment should be performed well by the HR department.

Examination of a perfectly apt candidate is the main concern of the qualitative resume software. A number of myriad aspects are considered for the resume assessment. There posses a competition of various talents that candidate possesses. Before recruitment of any applicant, his job analysis is performed by the HR department. For this purpose performing resume extraction becomes essential and resume analyzer is the medium to do so.

Proficient software performs a helpful task at job portals. The resume analyzer parses all the resumes and filters them on the basis of presence of keyword. It facilitates to match the particular keyword with every available resume. Presence of keywords indicates that the candidate is short listed while absence refers rejection. As these days everyone needs fast results performing resume extraction becomes essential to save time and money.

Resume analyzer helps in accepting and rejecting the resume of the candidates. It position or rank the candidates in to a list, this criteria is based on the presence of the keywords and the required apt information about the candidate. Resume software implements the standard policies for formatting the process of resume extraction and uploads this important data into your available database. This data is available in the text format. Essential information like name, qualifications, contact details, certifications, last work experience etc present in resume is uploaded into the database.

This information is used to match the criteria of the required job post. Ranking of the candidates helps to opt for the most suitable and skilled candidate among the list of thousands.

Resume extraction is one of the essential aspects to sort out the potential candidate.

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Data Mining: Its Description and Uses

Data Mining: Its Description and Uses

Data mining also known as the process of analyzing the KDD which stands for Knowledge Discovery in Databases is a part of statistics and computer science. It is a process which aims to find out many various patterns in enormous sets of relational data.

It uses ways at the fields of machine learning, database systems, artificial intelligence, and statistics. It permits users to examine data from many various perspectives, sort it, and summarize the identified relationships.

In general, the objective of data mining process is to obtain info out of a data set and convert it into a comprehensible outline. Also, it includes the following: data processing, data management and database aspects, visualization, complexity considerations, online updating, inference and model considerations, and interestingness metrics.

On the other hand, the actual data mining assignment is the semi-automatic or automatic exploration of huge quantities of information to extract patterns that are interesting and previously unknown. Such patterns can be the unusual records or the anomaly detection, data records groups or the cluster analysis, and the dependencies or the association rule mining. Usually, this involves utilizing database methods like spatial indexes. Such patters could be perceived as a type of summary of input data, and could be used in further examination or, for example, in predictive analysis and machine learning.

Today, data mining is utilized by different consumer-focused companies like those in the financial, retails, marketing, and communications fields. It permits such companies to find out relationships among the internal aspects like staff skills, price, product positioning, and external aspects like customer information, competition, and economic indicators. Additionally, it allows them to define the effect on corporate profits, sales, and customer satisfaction; and dig into the summary information to be able to see transactional data in detail.

With data mining process, a retailer can make use of point-of-scale customer purchases records to send promotions based on the purchase history of a client. The retailer can improve products and campaigns or promotions that can be appealing to a definite customer group by using mining data from comment cards.

Generally, any of the following relationships are obtained.

1. Associations: Data could be mined to recognize associations.
2. Clusters: Data are sorted based on a rational relationships or consumer preferences.
3. Sequential Patters: Data is mined to expect patterns and trends in behavior.
4. Classes: Data that are stored are utilized to trace data in predetermined segments.

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