Search Engine Scraper

This node module supports scraping several search engines.

Right now scraping the search engines

• Google
• Google News
• Google News App version (https://news.google.com)
• Google Image
• Bing
• Baidu
• Youtube
• Infospace
• Duckduckgo
• Webcrawler

is supported.

Additionally se-scraper supports investment ticker search from the following sites:

• Reuters
• cnbc
• Marketwatch

This module uses puppeteer. It was created by the Developer of https://github.com/NikolaiT/GoogleScraper, a module with 1800 Stars on Github.

Quickstart

Note: If you don't want puppeteer to download a complete chromium browser, add this variable to your environments:

export PUPPETEER_SKIP_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD=1

Then install with

npm install se-scraper

then create a file with the following contents and start scraping.

const se_scraper = require('se-scraper');

let config = {
    search_engine: 'google',
    debug: false,
    verbose: false,
    keywords: ['news', 'scraping scrapeulous.com'],
    num_pages: 3,
    output_file: 'data.json',
};

function callback(err, response) {
    if (err) { console.error(err) }
    console.dir(response, {depth: null, colors: true});
}

se_scraper.scrape(config, callback);

Technical Notes

Scraping is done with a headless chromium browser using the automation library puppeteer. Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control headless Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol.

No multithreading is supported for now. Only one scraping worker per scrape() call.

We will soon support parallelization. se-scraper will support an architecture similar to:

1. https://antoinevastel.com/crawler/2018/09/20/parallel-crawler-puppeteer.html
2. https://docs.browserless.io/blog/2018/06/04/puppeteer-best-practices.html

If you need to deploy scraping to the cloud (AWS or Azure), you can contact me at hire@incolumitas.com

The chromium browser is started with the following flags to prevent scraping detection.

var ADDITIONAL_CHROME_FLAGS = [
    '--disable-infobars',
    '--window-position=0,0',
    '--ignore-certifcate-errors',
    '--ignore-certifcate-errors-spki-list',
    '--no-sandbox',
    '--disable-setuid-sandbox',
    '--disable-dev-shm-usage',
    '--disable-accelerated-2d-canvas',
    '--disable-gpu',
    '--window-size=1920x1080',
    '--hide-scrollbars',
];

Furthermore, to avoid loading unnecessary ressources and to speed up scraping a great deal, we instruct chrome to not load images and css:

await page.setRequestInterception(true);
page.on('request', (req) => {
    let type = req.resourceType();
    const block = ['stylesheet', 'font', 'image', 'media'];
    if (block.includes(type)) {
        req.abort();
    } else {
        req.continue();
    }
});

Making puppeteer and headless chrome undetectable

Consider the following resources:

• https://intoli.com/blog/making-chrome-headless-undetectable/
• https://intoli.com/blog/not-possible-to-block-chrome-headless/
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16179602

se-scraper implements the countermeasures against headless chrome detection proposed on those sites.

Most recent detection counter measures can be found here:

• https://github.com/paulirish/headless-cat-n-mouse/blob/master/apply-evasions.js

se-scraper makes use of those anti detection techniques.

To check whether evasion works, you can test it by passing test_evasion flag to the config:

let config = {
    // check if headless chrome escapes common detection techniques
    test_evasion: true
};

It will create a screenshot named headless-test-result.png in the directory where the scraper was started that shows whether all test have passed.

Advanced Usage

Use se-scraper by calling it with a script such as the one below.

const se_scraper = require('se-scraper');
const resolve = require('path').resolve;

let config = {
    // the user agent to scrape with
    user_agent: 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/70.0.3538.110 Safari/537.36',
    // if random_user_agent is set to True, a random user agent is chosen
    random_user_agent: true,
    // whether to select manual settings in visible mode
    set_manual_settings: false,
    // log ip address data
    log_ip_address: false,
    // log http headers
    log_http_headers: false,
    // how long to sleep between requests. a random sleep interval within the range [a,b]
    // is drawn before every request. empty string for no sleeping.
    sleep_range: '[1,1]',
    // which search engine to scrape
    search_engine: 'google',
    compress: false, // compress
    debug: false,
    verbose: false,
    keywords: ['scrapeulous.com'],
    // whether to start the browser in headless mode
    headless: true,
    // the number of pages to scrape for each keyword
    num_pages: 1,
    // path to output file, data will be stored in JSON
    output_file: '',
    // whether to prevent images, css, fonts and media from being loaded
    // will speed up scraping a great deal
    block_assets: true,
    // path to js module that extends functionality
    // this module should export the functions:
    // get_browser, handle_metadata, close_browser
    //custom_func: resolve('examples/pluggable.js'),
    custom_func: '',
    // use a proxy for all connections
    // example: 'socks5://78.94.172.42:1080'
    // example: 'http://118.174.233.10:48400'
    proxy: '',
    // check if headless chrome escapes common detection techniques
    // this is a quick test and should be used for debugging
    test_evasion: false,
};

function callback(err, response) {
    if (err) { console.error(err) }

    /* response object has the following properties:

        response.results - json object with the scraping results
        response.metadata - json object with metadata information
        response.statusCode - status code of the scraping process
     */

    console.dir(response.results, {depth: null, colors: true});
}

se_scraper.scrape(config, callback);

Supported options for the search_engine config key:

'google'
'google_news_old'
'google_news'
'google_image'
'bing'
'bing_news'
'infospace'
'webcrawler'
'baidu'
'youtube'
'duckduckgo_news'
'reuters'
'cnbc'
'marketwatch'

Output for the above script on my machine:

{ 'scraping scrapeulous.com':
   { '1':
      { time: 'Tue, 29 Jan 2019 21:39:22 GMT',
        num_results: 'Ungefähr 145 Ergebnisse (0,18 Sekunden) ',
        no_results: false,
        effective_query: '',
        results:
         [ { link: 'https://scrapeulous.com/',
             title:
              'Scrapeuloushttps://scrapeulous.com/Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'Scrapeulous.com allows you to scrape various search engines automatically ... or to find hidden links, Scrapeulous.com enables you to scrape a ever increasing ...',
             visible_link: 'https://scrapeulous.com/',
             date: '',
             rank: 1 },
           { link: 'https://scrapeulous.com/about/',
             title:
              'About - Scrapeuloushttps://scrapeulous.com/about/Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'Scrapeulous.com allows you to scrape various search engines automatically and in large quantities. The business requirement to scrape information from ...',
             visible_link: 'https://scrapeulous.com/about/',
             date: '',
             rank: 2 },
           { link: 'https://scrapeulous.com/howto/',
             title:
              'Howto - Scrapeuloushttps://scrapeulous.com/howto/Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'We offer scraping large amounts of keywords for the Google Search Engine. Large means any number of keywords between 40 and 50000. Additionally, we ...',
             visible_link: 'https://scrapeulous.com/howto/',
             date: '',
             rank: 3 },
           { link: 'https://github.com/NikolaiT/se-scraper',
             title:
              'GitHub - NikolaiT/se-scraper: Javascript scraping module based on ...https://github.com/NikolaiT/se-scraperIm CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              '24.12.2018 - Javascript scraping module based on puppeteer for many different search ... for many different search engines... https://scrapeulous.com/.',
             visible_link: 'https://github.com/NikolaiT/se-scraper',
             date: '24.12.2018 - ',
             rank: 4 },
           { link:
              'https://github.com/NikolaiT/GoogleScraper/blob/master/README.md',
             title:
              'GoogleScraper/README.md at master · NikolaiT/GoogleScraper ...https://github.com/NikolaiT/GoogleScraper/blob/.../README.mdIm CacheÄhnliche SeitenDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'GoogleScraper - Scraping search engines professionally. Scrapeulous.com - Scraping Service. GoogleScraper is a open source tool and will remain a open ...',
             visible_link:
              'https://github.com/NikolaiT/GoogleScraper/blob/.../README.md',
             date: '',
             rank: 5 },
           { link: 'https://googlescraper.readthedocs.io/',
             title:
              'Welcome to GoogleScraper\'s documentation! — GoogleScraper ...https://googlescraper.readthedocs.io/Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'Welcome to GoogleScraper\'s documentation!¶. Contents: GoogleScraper - Scraping search engines professionally · Scrapeulous.com - Scraping Service ...',
             visible_link: 'https://googlescraper.readthedocs.io/',
             date: '',
             rank: 6 },
           { link: 'https://incolumitas.com/pages/scrapeulous/',
             title:
              'Coding, Learning and Business Ideas – Scrapeulous.com - Incolumitashttps://incolumitas.com/pages/scrapeulous/Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'A scraping service for scientists, marketing professionals, analysts or SEO folk. In autumn 2018, I created a scraping service called scrapeulous.com. There you ...',
             visible_link: 'https://incolumitas.com/pages/scrapeulous/',
             date: '',
             rank: 7 },
           { link: 'https://incolumitas.com/',
             title:
              'Coding, Learning and Business Ideashttps://incolumitas.com/Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'Scraping Amazon Reviews using Headless Chrome Browser and Python3. Posted on Mi ... GoogleScraper Tutorial - How to scrape 1000 keywords with Google.',
             visible_link: 'https://incolumitas.com/',
             date: '',
             rank: 8 },
           { link: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_scraping',
             title:
              'Search engine scraping - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_scrapingIm CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'Search engine scraping is the process of harvesting URLs, descriptions, or other information from search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. This is a ...',
             visible_link: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_scraping',
             date: '',
             rank: 9 },
           { link:
              'https://readthedocs.org/projects/googlescraper/downloads/pdf/latest/',
             title:
              'GoogleScraper Documentation - Read the Docshttps://readthedocs.org/projects/googlescraper/downloads/.../latest...Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              '23.12.2018 - Contents: 1 GoogleScraper - Scraping search engines professionally. 1. 1.1 ... For this reason, I created the web service scrapeulous.com.',
             visible_link:
              'https://readthedocs.org/projects/googlescraper/downloads/.../latest...',
             date: '23.12.2018 - ',
             rank: 10 } ] },
     '2':
      { time: 'Tue, 29 Jan 2019 21:39:24 GMT',
        num_results: 'Seite 2 von ungefähr 145 Ergebnissen (0,20 Sekunden) ',
        no_results: false,
        effective_query: '',
        results:
         [ { link: 'https://pypi.org/project/CountryGoogleScraper/',
             title:
              'CountryGoogleScraper · PyPIhttps://pypi.org/project/CountryGoogleScraper/Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'A module to scrape and extract links, titles and descriptions from various search ... Look [here to get an idea how to use asynchronous mode](http://scrapeulous.',
             visible_link: 'https://pypi.org/project/CountryGoogleScraper/',
             date: '',
             rank: 1 },
           { link: 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6xn6rc9GbI',
             title:
              'scrapeulous intro - YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6xn6rc9GbIDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'scrapeulous intro. Scrapeulous Scrapeulous. Loading... Unsubscribe from ... on Dec 16, 2018. Introduction ...',
             visible_link: 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6xn6rc9GbI',
             date: '',
             rank: 3 },
           { link:
              'https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/2tii3r/scraping_260_search_queries_in_bing_in_a_matter/',
             title:
              'Scraping 260 search queries in Bing in a matter of seconds using ...https://www.reddit.com/.../scraping_260_search_queries_in_bing...Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              '24.01.2015 - Scraping 260 search queries in Bing in a matter of seconds using asyncio and aiohttp. (scrapeulous.com). submitted 3 years ago by ...',
             visible_link:
              'https://www.reddit.com/.../scraping_260_search_queries_in_bing...',
             date: '24.01.2015 - ',
             rank: 4 },
           { link: 'https://twitter.com/incolumitas_?lang=de',
             title:
              'Nikolai Tschacher (@incolumitas_) | Twitterhttps://twitter.com/incolumitas_?lang=deIm CacheÄhnliche SeitenDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'Learn how to scrape millions of url from yandex and google or bing with: http://scrapeulous.com/googlescraper-market-analysis.html … 0 replies 0 retweets 0 ...',
             visible_link: 'https://twitter.com/incolumitas_?lang=de',
             date: '',
             rank: 5 },
           { link:
              'http://blog.shodan.io/hostility-in-the-python-package-index/',
             title:
              'Hostility in the Cheese Shop - Shodan Blogblog.shodan.io/hostility-in-the-python-package-index/Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              '22.02.2015 - https://zzz.scrapeulous.com/r? According to the author of the website, these hostile packages are used as honeypots. Honeypots are usually ...',
             visible_link: 'blog.shodan.io/hostility-in-the-python-package-index/',
             date: '22.02.2015 - ',
             rank: 6 },
           { link: 'https://libraries.io/github/NikolaiT/GoogleScraper',
             title:
              'NikolaiT/GoogleScraper - Libraries.iohttps://libraries.io/github/NikolaiT/GoogleScraperIm CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'A Python module to scrape several search engines (like Google, Yandex, Bing, ... https://scrapeulous.com/ ... You can install GoogleScraper comfortably with pip:',
             visible_link: 'https://libraries.io/github/NikolaiT/GoogleScraper',
             date: '',
             rank: 7 },
           { link: 'https://pydigger.com/pypi/CountryGoogleScraper',
             title:
              'CountryGoogleScraper - PyDiggerhttps://pydigger.com/pypi/CountryGoogleScraperDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              '19.10.2016 - Look [here to get an idea how to use asynchronous mode](http://scrapeulous.com/googlescraper-260-keywords-in-a-second.html). ### Table ...',
             visible_link: 'https://pydigger.com/pypi/CountryGoogleScraper',
             date: '19.10.2016 - ',
             rank: 8 },
           { link: 'https://hub.docker.com/r/cimenx/data-mining-penandtest/',
             title:
              'cimenx/data-mining-penandtest - Docker Hubhttps://hub.docker.com/r/cimenx/data-mining-penandtest/Im CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'Container. OverviewTagsDockerfileBuilds · http://scrapeulous.com/googlescraper-260-keywords-in-a-second.html. Docker Pull Command. Owner. profile ...',
             visible_link: 'https://hub.docker.com/r/cimenx/data-mining-penandtest/',
             date: '',
             rank: 9 },
           { link: 'https://www.revolvy.com/page/Search-engine-scraping',
             title:
              'Search engine scraping | Revolvyhttps://www.revolvy.com/page/Search-engine-scrapingIm CacheDiese Seite übersetzen',
             snippet:
              'Search engine scraping is the process of harvesting URLs, descriptions, or other information from search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. This is a ...',
             visible_link: 'https://www.revolvy.com/page/Search-engine-scraping',
             date: '',
             rank: 10 } ] } } }