Crawling websites to collect data is not strictly illegal but requires following certain guidelines. Websites often have robots.txt files that specify which URLs can be crawled or a no-bot policy for humans only in their terms of use. Crawlers must also maintain delays between requests to avoid overloading servers. While public content on the web can be crawled, care must be taken not to violate copyright and the purpose and use of collected data should be considered.

1. IS CRAWLING LEGAL?

2. COMMON CRAWLING QUERIES…

3. CAN YOU CRAWL AMAZON.COM?

4. GET PROFILE DATA FROM LINKEDIN? E-COMMERCE DATA?

5. GIVE TWEETS FOR #iPHONE6?
TWITTER DATA?

6. VITALQUESTION
IS IT LEGALTO GET THIS DATA?

7. YES & NONOT REALLY!

8. CRAWLING
IS AUTOMATED FETCHING OF WEBPAGE CONTENT
WEB CRAWLER?

9. CRAWLING TABOO?
QUITE OFTEN USED AGAINST WEBSITE POLICIES &
BREAKS THE GROUND RULES OF CRAWLING

10. I. ROBOTS.TXT
TELLS YOU WHAT URL CAN BE CRAWLED OR NOT!
RARELY BOT-SPECIFIC

11. ONLY A GUIDELINE NOT LEGALLY ENFORCEABLE

12. CRAWL ONLY PUBLIC CONTENT! COPYRIGHTMUST NOT BE NEGLECTED II. PUBLIC CONTENT

13. USE IT WELL
CHECK BEFORE CRAWLING! III. TERMS OF USE

14. BEFORE ACCESSING CONTENT
NO BOT POLICY. HUMANS ONLY! IV. AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED

15. MAINTAIN DELAY BETWEEN CRAWLS
HIT SERVER TOO HARD, TOO FAST…
CHANCES ARE THAT YOUR IPs WILL BE BLOCKED! V. CRAWL DELAY

16. WHY ALLOW CRAWLING?

17. •CONTENT REACHES PUBLIC
•Crawling increases content discovery as long as rules are followed
•SITES HAVE TRUCKLOADS OF INFORMATION!
•Bots assimilate entire site data automatically
•CRAWLING YIELDS PRECIOUS DATA
•Businesses gain competitive advantage
•Data Analytics gives the edge here

18. VERDICT? CRAWLING ISN’T STRICTLY ‘ILLEGAL’BE POLITEFOLLOW THE GROUND RULES

19. UNLESS…YOU ASK… WHAT IS THE DATA BEING GATHERED? WHAT IS ITS USE?

20. MORE HERE
www.promptcloud.com/blog

21. sales@promptcloud.com
DATA CRAWLING REQUIREMENT?