Daniel - December 14, 2021
How To Scrape Data From ZipLocal
In this article, I’ll be showing you how to scrape data from ZipLocal.
What Is ZipLocal?
ZipLocal is a popular online digital marketing service. The platform helps businesses reach their target audience by analyzing websites and providing insights to help them make better decisions.
ZipLocal’s top services include Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Website Design, and Pay Per Click advertising.
However, their most popular service is the Free Website Analysis for local businesses. As a business, you can send in your details and get a free analysis from ZipLocal on the performance of your website. You only need to provide your company name, email address, phone number, website, city, and state.
Once you submit, ZipLocal will take its time to analyze and rate your website based on different criteria. Then, they’ll reach out to you with the results. With ZipLocal, you get transparent reporting on all metrics. In addition to all of these, ZipLocal features virtual directories of companies across American states.
Scraping ZipLocal
The ZipLocal free website analysis requires that companies submit their data. Hence, the platform contains a lot of information on different companies which translates to leads. It features virtual directories and ZipLocal accepts submissions from companies in different industries.
For businesses today, you can overemphasize the need for lead generation. A company must generate quality leads to thrive. This includes knowing the right businesses to partner with, running optimal campaigns, and knowing your competitors. Sourcing data from ZipLocal directories is a great way to generate leads.
However, you cannot visit the ZipLocal virtual directories page and start downloading or copying information manually. Not only will it waste your time but for quality lead generation, efficiency is important. Hence it’s ideal to use a web scraping bot.
A scraping bot will automatically extract the data you need from ZipLocal. You only have to define what type of data you need. There are many quality web scraping bots available so you won’t have to build one yourself. However, a web scraping bot alone won’t do the job.
Using Proxies For Scraping
Web scraping bots work automatically. They send bulk requests to a website's server to extract data. For some servers, this can be overwhelming. Also, most cybercriminals also make use of bots. It’s not possible for a web server to tell the intention of the bot user so they take precautions to block all bot traffic.
What this means is that your web scraping bot can get blocked if you attempt scraping ZipLocal. This is why a web scraping bot alone won’t do the job. You also need a proxy. A web proxy can help you prevent banning by making your traffic appear natural.
It does this by masking your true IP and allowing you use multiple IPs from different ISPs or datacenter. You can rotate IPs so that each one sends a limited amount of traffic before switching to the next. That way, ZipLocal’s servers won’t be able to flag any of your IPs for sending too many requests.
Your web scraping traffic won’t appear to be coming from one computer but instead many computers since you’re using different IPs.
Best Proxies For ZipLocal Scraping
There are unreliable proxies out there and using them may even make websites like ZipLocal ban your bot quicker. Hence, you should only make use of the best and for that, I recommend ProxyRack.
ProxyRack is a renowned proxy service with both residential and datacenter proxies. There are 5 million+ residential and 20,000+ data center proxies which is more than enough for scraping ZipLocal.
With ProxyRack, you’re guaranteed a high success rate and optimal performance. Also, you don’t have to break the banks as the proxies are affordable. Check them out below:
Unmetered Residential Proxies: Starting from $80
Premium GEO Residential Proxies: Starting from $14.95
Private Residential Proxies: Starting from $99.95
USA Rotating Datacenter Proxies: Starting at $120
Mixed Rotating Datacenter Proxies: Starting at $120
Shared Datacenter Proxies: Starting at $49
Canada Rotating Proxies: Starting at $65
Bottom Line
Now, you should be able to scrape data from ZipLocal.
In essence, ZipLocal has data that can benefit you as a company and business website. With a web scraping bot and a good proxy, you can scrape data off ZipLocal directories without issues.
