Website data extraction

[Novus]

Has anyone had experience retriving data from a site using 3rd party software, i badly need an export of data from my site but do not have a facility to do so, im expecting my developers to charge but im wonding if there is some software that will crawl the site and pull off the info I (price, type, description etc) need for around 2000 products.

[longen]

I've used the paid service from Mozenda but I assume you are looking for a free service.
If it is a SQL database could you not export the data yourself.

[Novus]

Hi I just looked a Mozenda, yes ist is an SQL database but its hosted with the developers which I have no access, My CMS is archaic so cant do it from there. Im expecting the devs to charge so i was just wondering if there is an alternative.

[longen]

Compare the Developers fee with what Mechanical Turk would cost.

[Novus]

Hi All

Just to re-touch on this subject my developers have increased there quote from £350 to £495 to £1125 for the task of creating a csv export facility from a CMS.

Due to the miss quoting they have offered to do the work for £750 now this still seems rather high considering exporting the data directly from the SQL server can be done relatively easly, The site is basic php, I would not thave thought it would be so expensive.

[londrum]

if all the info you need about each product is displayed using the same template, then it should be pretty easy to scrape the data straight from the page

if you're only talking about 2000 products then it wouldn't even take very long. you just need someone to write a simple little .php script for you

[brotherhood of LAN]

A simple one line command with WGET can fetch all the pages, and as said, a simple script can extract the data from them.