You can get nearly everything on Craigslist.
From next-door apartment to missed connections on a subway.
So many listings are there on Craigslist, which it could be hard for shifting through them as well as compare them competently.
Wouldn’t that be suitable if you can scrape all the details from the set of lists in the spreadsheet?
Craigslist Data Scraping
Using the influence of Web Scraping, we can easily scrape all the details we’d need from Craigslist. Here, we will extract the rent house results in Toronto. With this scenario, this data could be utilized for apartment search or doing analysis of present rental market.
We would also utilize Retailgators Scraper, a powerful data scraper, which can easily cope with websites including Craigslist.
Let’s Get Started
1. Initially, ensure to download as well as open Retailgators Scraper.
2. Then, click on a New Project as well as submit search results pages we would be extracting. The webpage would render within the app as well as you would be able to begin choosing data to exports.
Extracting Craigslist Data
1. When a webpage you’ve submitted gets renders, just click on title of first listings on a page. This would get highlighted in color green to exhibit that this has been chosen.
2. Rest of titles on a screen would get highlighted in color yellow. Just click on second option to choose them all. They would all be selected as well as highlighted in color green.
3. In the left-hand sidebar, just rename the selection with listing. Retailgators is now scraping a listing title as well as its URLs.
4. After the selection, utilize the PLUS (+) symbol as well as select the command ‘Relative Select’. Utilize the command and click on a title of first listing as well as on its pricing. One arrow will come to highlight this selection. Just rename the selection with price.
5. Utilize the icon given next to price selection for expanding your selection as well as remove price_url scraping, as it’s drawing the list URL again.
6. Repeat the step 5 to choose the list bedroom details and locations. Rename the selections consequently.
Extracting Craigslist Listing Pages
Now we will tell Retailgators to click on every listing on a page as well as scrape extra data from every listing.
1. Initially, just click on PLUS (+) symbol next to listing selection as well as pick click command.
2. One pop-up will come asking if it is the “next page” button. Then click no as well as pick ‘Create New Template’. Just name the new template with listing_template.
3. The initial listing would automatically open and you would be able to do your initial selection.
4. Then we would start by choosing the listing title. Just rename the selection with title.
5. Utilize the PLUS (+) symbol next to title selection as well as utilize ‘Relative Select’ command to make the new selection for scraping.
6. Here, we’ve done selections for listing information and date.
7. For web scraping, you would notice that information scraped would show times like relative timestamps (for example, 2 Hours Ago). For improving this scraping, expand the date selection as well as click on command “extract date”. On an Extract dropdown, select “Title Attribute”. Retailgators would now scrape the complete time as well as date of the publication.
Deal with Navigation
Up to now, we’ve told Retailgators Scraper to scrape data from first page results and all the listings. However, you may want to extract even more data.
Now, we will tell Retailgators Scraper to extract listings from next couple of result pages.
1. Initially, utilize the left-hand sidebar to return to main_template. Then, click on a browser tab for search results pages.
2. Utilize PLUS (+) symbol next to page selection as well as opt for ‘Select’ command.
3. Utilizing ‘Select’ command, just scroll to bottom of a page as well as choose “next” link given on a page. Just rename the selection with next.
4. Increase your selection as well as remove both the extractions, which were made by default.
5. Then, utilize the PLUS (+) symbol on next selection as well as select ‘Click’ command.
6. One pop-up will come asking if it is the “next” button. Then click on ‘Yes’ as well as enter number of times you’d love to repeat the sequence. Here, we would repeat that 5 times.
Run the Scrape Jobs
Now, we are all set to run the scrape jobs. Just click on ‘Get Data’ button given on left-hand sidebar as well as choose ‘Run’.
After the job gets completed, you would be able to download the scraped data in the Excel spreadsheet.
Conclusion
Now as your initial Craigslist Scraper is completed, you can handover these skills for extracting other products’ categories given on Craigslist.
For instance, you can extract car or iPhone prices to ensure that you’re having the finest deals possible for the next purchase. Want to learn more about Craigslist web scraping? Contact Retailgators or ask for a free quote!
