Discover how to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks using Python, with a focus on web data collection and extraction. Whether your professional interests center on social media analytics, e-commerce, real estate, travel, or government affairs, the ability to rapidly gather current data from across the internet provides a significant competitive advantage in today's data-driven world.
Learn to write Python code that extracts precisely the data you need from websites with surgical accuracy. Throughout the course, you will master the creation of loops that enable your web scraping scripts to efficiently process large quantities of pages, saving you hours of manual work. These core concepts will be reinforced with real-world examples of functional programs that successfully scrape valuable datasets from prominent websites across the internet.
The curriculum covers practical implementation details, including common pitfalls to avoid, strategies for scheduling your programs to run automatically on a regular basis, and multiple data storage formats to suit various project needs. This course is ideal for programming newcomers seeking an introduction to the capabilities of code, and provides an excellent starting point for students with a specific learning objective around Python for web or software development. This course is included in our Data Science Certificate program. While no mathematical background or prior coding experience is required, you should have foundational knowledge of HTML and CSS before beginning.
Prerequisites: Knowledge equivalent to our Intro to Python Programming Bootcamp or Python for Data Science Bootcamp courses.
What You'll Learn:
- Python syntax and how to construct functional programs
- How to schedule your programs to execute on a regular basis
- Identify and correct programming errors effectively
- How to write scripts that automate manual, repetitive tasks
- How to update Excel files automatically using Python
Learn more about Python for Automation at Practical Programming.