Build Data That Doesn't Exist
When APIs don't exist or don't give you what you need, scraping is the answer. Build custom datasets, monitor competitors, extract structured data at scale.
Playwright
Modern browser automation from Microsoft. Handles JavaScript rendering, multiple browsers, and modern web apps. More reliable than Puppeteer, better API than Selenium. The right choice for most SEO scraping in 2025.
Browser Automation
For sites that require JavaScript rendering or interaction.
Playwright
USE ITCross-browser automation: Chrome, Firefox, Safari. Auto-wait, network interception, mobile emulation. Better reliability than Puppeteer for complex sites. Python, JavaScript, and C# SDKs. The modern choice.
Puppeteer
USE ITChrome/Chromium automation from Google. Mature, widely used, lots of examples. Good for Chrome-only scraping. Playwright is generally better now, but Puppeteer is still solid if you're already using it.
Selenium
SITUATIONALThe original browser automation tool. Still works, still maintained. More boilerplate than Playwright/Puppeteer. Use if you have existing Selenium code or need specific browser/language combinations it supports.
HTML Parsing
For static HTML pages that don't need JavaScript rendering.
Beautiful Soup (Python)
USE ITPython library for parsing HTML. Simple API, handles messy HTML well. Combine with requests for fetching. Perfect for static pages. The default choice for Python SEO scraping.
Scrapy
USE ITFull scraping framework for Python. Handles requests, parsing, pipelines, and exports. Built for large-scale scraping. More setup than Beautiful Soup but much more powerful. Use for production scraping systems.
Cheerio (Node.js)
USE ITjQuery-like HTML parsing for Node.js. Fast, familiar API if you know jQuery. The Node.js equivalent of Beautiful Soup. Good for JavaScript-based tooling.
Scraping Services
Managed infrastructure for scraping at scale.
Apify
SITUATIONALCloud scraping platform with pre-built actors for common sites. Run Puppeteer/Playwright in the cloud. Good for scaling without infrastructure. Has Google SERP scrapers, social media scrapers, and more.
Bright Data (formerly Luminati)
SITUATIONALProxy network and scraping infrastructure. Residential IPs, SERP API, web unlocker. Expensive but solves the hard problems (rate limiting, CAPTCHAs, blocks). For serious scraping operations.
ScrapingBee
SITUATIONALWeb scraping API with JavaScript rendering and proxy rotation. Simple API, handles anti-bot measures. Good middle ground between DIY scraping and full infrastructure like Bright Data.
Scraping Ethics & Legality
Web scraping exists in a legal gray area. Respect robots.txt, don't overload servers, and understand that scraping Terms of Service violations can have consequences.
Safe uses: Scraping public data for research, monitoring your own sites, building datasets that aren't available elsewhere.
Risky uses: Scraping behind authentication, ignoring rate limits, scraping and republishing copyrighted content.
When in doubt, use official APIs. They're more reliable, legal, and won't break when the site changes its HTML.