Website scraping

[magraw]

Hello all,

 

I was hoping for some guidance, any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

 

In short, I have set up a fashion site. On the site people can comment on and like fashion images.

 

For the site to generate content I need to source images from other fashion sites, both the fashion images (e.g. shoes, jumpers etc) and to also include each of their associated content (e.g. price, descriptions and so forth).

 

I was hoping you could tell me the best way to source this content.

 

One method is APIs and I am trying to secure these from major brands. However, this is taking time and also not all sites have an API.

 

I was hoping to 'scrape' these images and their associated content, on a regular basis from selected sites. 

 

My key questions are:

 

1) Is there a tool that can do this? If so, are there tools / companies who are well known / the best at this?

2) What is the likely cost of such a tool?

3) Can you do this manually? i.e. outsource?

4) How much would the outsource model cost?

5) Is there any outsource companies that are best in market? and/or a good price for a starter fashion website?

 

One example scenario might be:

 

- 1000 images per website, with associated content

- 5 websites

- once a month update

 

I look forward to hearing from anyone who can help.

 

Many thanks,

Magraw

[Nick H. Supervisor]

I've not been a coder for a while, but the first thing that I think of is this: Do you have permission to take those photos from the sites that you are scraping the images from?

[Obry]

Unfortunately I don't think it's exactly legal for you to do that. It's copyright violation to do so unless you have express written notice from the owners of the websites you are trying to scrape. If you do get a written permission, then you might be able to do this. However, as this is generally considered gray area (scraping website content) you will have to dig a little deeper and use tools that might not be exactly easy to use (Google is your friend here). I don't think you'll come across some company that actually specializes in such stuff (I could be wrong though)...

[Aergan]

You'll not only need permission to send a tonne of non-user traffic (which will skew their reports/stats potentially) but also permission from the copyright holder of each image which may not belong to them.

[DrJohnSmitherson]

A google search returned this site

http://mozenda.com/

http://www.visualwebripper.com/

 

A program could be created to scrape the images. The complexity will vary depending on the site being scraped and what you want from each page.

[TAZMINATOR]

Similar to my old website that I used to buy the licensed packages of the photos then display them on my site for the visitors to see.

You can buy licensed packages of the items you want from the fashion based market or whoever you buy from so you will be able to display the items on your site and update whenever you can as long as they have new items coming up (days or months) ...

Make sure to read the agreements and/or terms before purchasing or getting any of the images otherwise you will be screwed and/or ended up getting sued for copyright violations.

Best thing to do is contact the sellers or market owners about the items you want to use for permissions... and make sure both ends have no problems with the said agreements.

If you steal the images from the sites, someone will visit and check for any violations you make, if so, they will contact you or sue you for that.

You can use API with linked remote-based images/contents that can be updated automatically by the markets which you may not have to do a thing.

[Moska]

@Neowinian

 

Hi, You can try this http://scrape4me.com/

It's free and very simple to use. Let me know if you need help with it

[Original Poster]

ok what you are requesting is illegal is you are not given an API and are scraping you are most likley violating many laws