Web Scraping Building Products Using Mozenda

• Project ID:

  720287

• Project Type:

  Fixed

• Budget:

  $30-$250 USD
  

Project Description:

Mozenda provides a simple point-and-click interface, enabling you to extract specific information and images from any website. Basically, it makes scraping very simple and easy to run at any time through a SaaS model. You can learn more about the tool here: http://mozenda.com/tour01-overview. Literally anyone can build a scraper using Mozenda, but it is recommended that you have at least a basic understanding of (x)HTML in order to debug scrapers. (If we hire you, you can also call their tech support when encountering any problems. They are quite helpful.)

We use Mozenda to build "Agents" to regularly scrape the catalogs of various building product manufacturers and suppliers. We typically collect several dozen data points including:

* URLs of images
* Colors
* Technical Specs (size, weight, composition, etc.)
* Sustainability info (recycled content, manufacturing location, etc.)
* URLs of PDFs
We will provide you with:

* Data points we require
* A specific manufacturer's or supplier's website
* A Mozenda account
You will be responsible for:

* Building a Mozenda Agent to scrape the data points
* Testing and debugging the Agent
* Providing a report with any data points that you were unable to find and/or successfully scrape

In our testing, Agents can take anywhere from an hour to a few hours. We expect that time to decrease significantly over time. It is also highly dependent on the number of data points and complexity of the website.

In addition to being able to use Mozenda, this job will be hard to accomplish without some experience or familiarity with building design. If you understand the following terms, you likely will be able to do this job:

* Dye Method
* Fiber
* Colorway
* Postconsumer Recycled Content
* MasterFormat Section

This work will be ongoing, and we are looking for people who are interested in regular work and generally can provide a quick turnaround time. Initially, we will be starting with carpet and then moving into other types of interiors products such as furniture, paint and lighting.

NOTE: If you would like to play with Mozenda before applying for this job, you can download the "Agent Builder" at http://publish11.mozenda.com/Mozenda-2.1.212.exe.

Skills required:

Building Architecture, Data Processing, HTML, Interior Design, Web Scraping