Data is Key: Scraping Metadata from Websites

Stop writing brittle, site-specific scrapers. Learn to parse structured metadata and treat the web as one giant, queryable API.

#1about 2 minutes

How social media sites generate link previews

Social media platforms scrape hidden metadata like titles and descriptions from URLs to transform a simple link into a rich preview.

#2about 1 minute

Defining web scraping and its primary use cases

Web scraping is the practice of gathering data from websites without an API, often used when APIs are missing, rate-limited, or too expensive.

#3about 2 minutes

Why CSS selector-based scraping is brittle

Relying on specific CSS selectors for scraping creates a fragile solution that is tied to a single site and breaks whenever the source code changes.

#4about 4 minutes

Generic scraping with schema.org and JSON-LD

Schema.org provides a standardized vocabulary for structured data, enabling the creation of generic scrapers using formats like JSON-LD.

#5about 5 minutes

Using meta tags for structured data extraction

Protocols like Open Graph (OGP) and Twitter Cards extend standard HTML meta tags to provide rich, structured metadata for social sharing and scraping.

#6about 4 minutes

The oEmbed protocol for embedded content

The oEmbed protocol offers a standardized endpoint for retrieving embeddable representations of a URL, which is essential for sites like Instagram.

#7about 1 minute

Showcasing a powerful multi-protocol scraper

A demonstration shows how combining different scraping techniques can extract rich information, including product prices and author images, from various websites.

#8about 3 minutes