Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: Lazydocker on 30 October 2012, 15:27:32
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I'm looking for a way to extract the name and address details from search results (on yell/thompson/other listing sites) and dump them into a .csv file for my reference. Anyone know of an easy way to do it?
For a start I'm trying to lift the garage names and addresses from these results: (http://www.yell.com/ucs/UcsSearchAction.do?keywords=petrol+stations&location=kent&scrambleSeed=1853754161&targetName=&T=1&startOoaAt=0&pageNum=1&originalKeywords=petrol+stations&ssm=1)
Thanks in advance
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paul quite a few of those don't even exsist anymore.. :y
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paul quite a few of those don't even exsist anymore.. :y
Yep, it's not for a concise list but to give an idea and point the lad in the right direction for the marketing. No mail shots or anything like that :y
That said, I think the idea could potentially breach the T&C's of the site I linked to so it might be dead before it starts ::)
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Humm difficult, as you have to click through pages to get more results.
What do you want to use the search results for?
I'd maybe look at "printing" the results, but print to PDF, then import those....
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All I want is the garage name and addresses that I can then sort by postcode/town for example.
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I'd say PDF is the way, trouble is you cannot increase the number of search results.
Also might be better using Google Maps:
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Petrol+Stations+Kent&hl=en&ll=51.256758,0.714111&spn=0.684123,1.234589&sll=51.528642,-0.101599&sspn=0.680074,1.234589&hq=Petrol+Stations&hnear=Kent,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=10 (https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Petrol+Stations+Kent&hl=en&ll=51.256758,0.714111&spn=0.684123,1.234589&sll=51.528642,-0.101599&sspn=0.680074,1.234589&hq=Petrol+Stations&hnear=Kent,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=10)
You can just select the text on the left, could just copy and paste. Might get a bit of RSI though ;D
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if you view the source of html page, its a combination of javascript and html.. a part of the adresses come from variables.. so even if you you write a word tracking script you wont get much data :-\
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I would imagine they would have deliberately designed the page to make it awkward for third parties to scrape the results, to be honest. Probably means that if you invest in writing code to do it they will be regularly changing their implementation anyway, so it will quickly become outdated.
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I would imagine they would have deliberately designed the page to make it awkward for third parties to scrape the results, to be honest. Probably means that if you invest in writing code to do it they will be regularly changing their implementation anyway, so it will quickly become outdated.
Not a huge issue. Once he's been round the garages a few times he doesn't need the list any more anyway ;)
Looks like I'll have to do it the way I did the last lot in Central London... Slowly and with Google maps, scrolling across and selecting each garage in turn to copy the address into a spreadsheet I have built :(
It was worth a try though ::)
Having delved a bit deeper it seems that Yell don't look too kindly on it (and I would imagine most directories would be the same) anyway so it's the long, slow process of doing it manually I suppose ::)
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You will find these companies would rather sell you a list from their databases....
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You will find these companies would rather sell you a list from their databases....
From what I can find, they don't even do that any more ::)
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You will find these companies would rather sell you a list from their databases....
From what I can find, they don't even do that any more ::)
Plenty of companies will. And probably more comprehensive than a subscribed advertiser.
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You will find these companies would rather sell you a list from their databases....
From what I can find, they don't even do that any more ::)
Plenty of companies will. And probably more comprehensive than a subscribed advertiser.
True... But the few I have looked at don't seem to have anywhere near the number of garages I know are there ::)