Client Success Story

Business Listing Data Scraping for a Leading Global Consulting Firm

99%

Data Accuracy

45%

Reduced Time-to-Insight

Service

  • Web Scraping
  • Data Extraction
  • Data Collection

Platform

  • Scrapy
  • Python
  • Selenium
THE CLIENT

A Multi-National Strategy & Consulting Company

Our client operates across more than 40 countries, helping businesses make informed strategic decisions through comprehensive market research and data analysis. Their expertise lies in developing and providing practical solutions for sustainable growth and business expansion to Fortune 500 companies, non-profit organizations, and government institutions.

PROJECT REQUIREMENTS

Large-Scale Business Listing Data Extraction for Comprehensive Market Intelligence

The client sought our website data scraping services to extract detailed business listings for approximately 150 prominent brands across multiple geographic locations from a prominent business directory. Their goal was to build a reliable and extensive business intelligence database to support their strategic market research initiatives, competitive analysis, and client advisory services.

The requested dataset included:

  • Business names, addresses, and geo-coordinates
  • Phone numbers and email addresses
  • Website URLs
  • Company’s operating hours
  • Customer reviews, ratings, and services offered
PROJECT CHALLENGES

Ensuring Reliable Data Collection Despite Platform Security Measures and Complex Formats

While executing this large-scale data extraction project, our team encountered multiple technical obstacles that required careful handling:

  • Anti-bot Scraping Mechanisms: The business directory platform employed advanced anti-scraping mechanisms (such as request monitoring, dynamic responses, and CAPTCHA), complicating large-scale automated data collection. Each request risked being blocked, requiring us to mimic real human browsing behavior during scraping.
  • Dynamic Content: The platform featured dynamically loaded content, particularly for data points like ratings and reviews. Traditional HTML parsing methods couldn't capture this content, necessitating browser automation techniques.
  • Encoded and Masked Contact Details: Critical business information, such as phone numbers, was obfuscated using CSS class-based encoding. Instead of being directly available, these details were dynamically styled to hide their true values. A custom decoding logic was required to ensure that contact information could be accurately retrieved, standardized, and made usable for the client’s database.
  • Data Diversity: Since the data collection scope spanned about 150 brands across multiple cities, each search returned varying formats of business information— different listing lengths, missing data fields, inconsistent categorization, and location-based variations. We didn’t just have to extract the data, but also normalize and structure it in a uniform schema to ensure consistency and accuracy across all outputs.
  • Scalable Solution: With thousands of brand-location combinations to process, the data scraping solution had to be highly scalable. Running the crawler at scale without compromising speed, accuracy, or stability required advanced configuration, resource optimization, and smart data processing pipelines.
OUR SOLUTION

Automated Web Scraping with Advanced Anti-Bot Measures and Scalable Architecture

To overcome the technical limitations and ensure seamless data collection at scale, we developed a customized end-to-end web data scraping solution optimized for the business directory’s ecosystem.

1

Custom Data Scraping Solution

To capture both static fields (e.g., business name, address) and JavaScript-rendered content (e.g., reviews, extended details), we deployed a hybrid stack that combined Scrapy for high-speed crawling and Selenium in headless Chrome mode for pages that required rendering.

2

Advanced Anti-Bot Bypass

We bypassed the platform’s anti-bot scraping measures by rotating residential proxies, randomizing request headers, utilizing adaptive crawling speeds, and implementing intelligent retry logic. This approach mimicked natural browsing patterns while distributing requests to avoid IP-based blocking and rate limiting.

Additionally, we implemented CAPTCHA detection and automatic re-queuing, ensuring smooth data collection despite platform security features.

3

Data Normalization and Standardization

We standardized the extracted information across all listings, ensuring consistency and accuracy. Key data points like addresses, contact details, and reviews were cleaned and validated to eliminate duplicates and inconsistencies. Inconsistent formats (such as varying phone number styles, address abbreviations, and rating scales) were normalized into a unified structure, enabling seamless integration with the client's existing systems and analysis tools.

4

Contact Data Extraction and Pagination Management

Leveraging a custom dictionary in Python, we built a mapping system that translated codes into real phone digits. This allowed us to accurately reconstruct complete phone numbers from the coded patterns.

Additionally, we developed custom scraping logic to automatically detect whether search results spanned a single page or multiple pages, then systematically navigated through all available pages using adaptive "Next" button detection and URL parameter analysis. This ensured complete data capture regardless of whether a brand had 10 listings or 500+ listings across dozens of pages.

5

Error Handling and Data Integrity

We implemented error-handling mechanisms, such as retry logic with exponential backoff (to manage temporary network issues, timeouts, or site-imposed restrictions) and real-time data validation. Instead of relying solely on automation, we also employed our data specialists for QA and manual data validation. They verified extraction accuracy and intervened to fine-tune scraping parameters or resolve complex edge cases. This hybrid approach minimized data loss and maximized the reliability of the information extracted.

6

Scalable Cloud Deployment

The web scraping solution was deployed on a secure VPS (virtual private server) and designed for scalability, supporting parallel scraping across multiple brand-location combinations. The scraper was automated to run on demand or via scheduled tasks, ensuring timely data extraction without manual intervention. The system also provided detailed run logs and reporting to track the progress of each scraping cycle.

Project Outcomes

Our team securely and successfully scraped relevant information (over 50,000 records) for the required brands with 99% accuracy. This ready-to-use dataset empowered the client’s market intelligence strategies and helped them achieve measurable growth, such as:

50,000+ business listings extracted across 150 global brands and multiple locations

99% data accuracy maintained through automated web scraping & human data validation workflows

Time-to-insight reduced by 45%, enabling faster client advisory and market research outputs.

CONTACT US

Access Critical Market Insights with Scalable Data Extraction Solutions

We provide support for web research and data management powering strategic decision-making and faster business intelligence for enterprises. Schedule a free consultation to know more about our web scraping and data collection services.