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Alternative data collection

Build research-ready signals from public web activity.

Track product availability, prices, hiring, company activity, news, property, and local-market change in point-in-time records. Define the entities, source panel, cadence, history, and delivery your research needs.

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WebScrapingAPI supplies public-web collection infrastructure and contracted delivery. Your team owns the research method, permitted use, models, conclusions, and investment decisions.

Start with the workload

Start with the research decision, then design the signal.

Consumer demand, pricing, company activity, hiring, news, and property research each require their own entity list, source panel, fields, cadence, history, and missing-data rules.

Multi-source demand panel

Build an observable view of category demand.

Observe agreed product panels, availability, assortment, review activity, ratings, search-result presence, and publisher coverage without turning those inputs into a conclusion.

  • Define brands, categories, retailers, markets, and comparison denominators.
  • Retain price, stock, review, rank, and capture context as separate observations.
  • Keep WSA observations distinct from your demand feature or forecast.
Design a representative demand panel

Research brief

Write the research brief before building the feed.

Name the decision, target entities, approved source panel, required fields, markets, cadence, history window, and missing-data treatment before collection starts.

Test the difficult records first. A small real panel exposes inaccessible pages, weak identifiers, sparse fields, regional differences, ambiguous changes, and unrealistic history assumptions before production scope is fixed.

Illustrative signal brief specification · v0.4

Research question Is public demand momentum changing by market?

Entity universe Approved brands, products, and retailers

Source universe Named public commerce and review pages

Observation fields Availability, listed price, reviews, seller count

Cadence & history Weekly snapshots · history from launch

Quality measures Coverage, fill, conflicts, gaps, conformance

Delivery contract Versioned records · agreed destination

Explicit exclusions Transactions, private sources, forecast output

Observation boundary

“Not observed” means the approved panel did not expose the field at that capture. It does not mean the underlying business event did not happen.

Point-in-time history

Preserve what the research process could know at the time.

Store each observed value with its retrieval time, source state, schema version, and later correction. A missing collection window stays a gap instead of becoming an invented business event.

History starts where collection starts. Backfill depends on eligible archives or past source pages and is tested separately for coverage, consistency, and survivorship gaps.

Illustrative observation history entity_demo_047 · signal.v2

T0

Baseline observed Source returned an available offer · captured Jul 02

observed

T1

No field change Source retrieved; value and context unchanged · Jul 09

unchanged

T2

Collection window incomplete Source response unavailable after agreed retries · Jul 16

gap

T3

Availability changed Offer returned unavailable · captured Jul 23

changed

R1

Prior record restated Source mapping corrected; original value retained in history

restated

A missed window is not converted into a business event. Recovery, restatement, and backfill behavior are defined in the data contract.

Entity continuity

Keep the entity stable when the web changes around it.

Names, domains, locations, listings, brands, and source IDs can change independently. Preserve the source evidence and the match decision so a new alias does not silently create a new company—or rewrite the old one.

Resolution is service-dependent. Customers using proxies or page-access APIs own cross-source matching. Scheduled and managed programs can include agreed identifiers, thresholds, aliases, and review states.

Illustrative entity evidence map

Canonical research entity entity_demo_047 Northstar Retail Group · fictional

official domain northstar.example matched

brand alias Northstar Home reviewed

careers source ID org_584 matched

location directory place_221 changed

Point-in-time mapping Observation stays tied to the source identity used at capture.

A later merger, rename, redirect, or match correction becomes explicit mapping history.

matched review changed

Coverage & quality

Know why a row is present, missing, or changed.

Measure retrieval, required fields, entity matches, duplicate conflicts, observation age, continuity gaps, and delivery conformance against the approved panel.

Alternative data quality measures

Source and entity coverage Required-field availability Reviewed extraction checks Observation age and continuity Duplicate and conflict rate Schema and delivery conformance

Illustrative acceptance ledger panel · week 29

Approved source retrieval Expected pages reached after agreed retries

within rule

Required-field availability field sparse in one source family

review

Continuity One incomplete collection window retained as a gap

exception

Entity conflicts Two source IDs routed to the review state

review

Schema conformance Types, units, currencies, and version validated

within rule

Thresholds, sample method, exception routing, repair policy, and impact communication are agreed for the operated service—not inferred from this illustration.

Governance boundary

Define what can be collected, retained, and used.

Approve the research purpose, public sources, necessary fields, markets, collection rates, history, retention, users, and change process before launch.

Research responsibility remains with your team. Your team owns the legal assessment, licensing and terms review, material non-public information controls, personal-data basis, model governance, retention, user access, research conclusions, and investment decisions.

Not assumed in the standard scope

Private or login-gated sources, proprietary payment or transaction data, device or footfall feeds, satellite imagery, material non-public information, sensitive personal data, legal or investment advice, exclusive datasets, or guaranteed predictive performance.

01 Purpose

Name the research question, intended users, downstream decisions, and fields that are genuinely necessary.

02 Sources

Approve public source families and explicit exclusions; do not assume universal website coverage.

03 Minimize

Collect the narrowest fields and history that support the documented research design.

04 Trace

Retain source, observation time, collection state, schema version, and mapping context when contracted.

05 Controle

Set retention, access, transfer, deletion, incident, and permitted-user requirements before production.

06 Revisão

Reassess new sources, fields, geographies, purposes, or personal-data exposure before expanding scope.

Operating model

Choose the data supply your research team can support.

Run your own collectors, use maintained web access, receive recurring point-in-time records, or hand off the operated data program. Your team retains the methodology, lawful use, models, and conclusions.

Maximum collection control

Run the full signal pipeline on your infrastructure.

WSA operates the documented proxy service. Your team selects sources and owns discovery, requests, parsing, entity mapping, history, quality, delivery, and all research use.
ResponsabilidadeProprietário
Research thesis, intended use & approved sourcesA sua equipa
Access, collection & extractionWSA network · your collectors
Entity mapping, history & qualityA sua equipa
Collector maintenance & deliveryA sua equipa
Storage, lawful use, models & decisionsA sua equipa

Best for teams with mature collection, data engineering, and quality operations.

Explore proxy infrastructure

Evaluation process

Test the hard cases before scaling the feed.

Use real source examples to expose sparse fields, weak identifiers, continuity gaps, regional variance, inaccessible pages, and restatements before production.

  1. 01 · Thesis

    Define the question

    Confirm intended use, entities, source candidates, fields, markets, cadence, history, exclusions, and destination.

  2. 02 · Sample

    Inspect real observations

    Review normal, changed, missing, duplicated, ambiguous, inaccessible, and restated examples from the proposed panel.

  3. 03 · Specify

    Agree acceptance rules

    Set fields, coverage denominator, fill rules, timestamps, mapping states, continuity, quality thresholds, and exception handling.

  4. 04 · Operate

    Launch and monitor

    Confirm ownership, cadence, change policy, delivery path, remediation, communication, and review checkpoints.

A pilot validates collection and the agreed record format. It does not validate predictive performance or determine whether the research method is appropriate.

Evaluation FAQs

Questions a data buyer should ask early.

Use the pilot to make sources, history, quality, ownership, and governance inspectable before committing to production.

What counts as alternative data in this service?

We focus on observations collected from approved public web sources and used alongside conventional research data. Examples include product, pricing, hiring, company, news, search, property, travel, review, and location signals. Proprietary transaction, device, satellite, and private-source data are not assumed to be included.

Can we define our own source universe, entities, and fields?

Yes. A scheduled or managed program begins with the research purpose, entity universe, approved public sources, fields, geography, cadence, history requirements, exclusions, and delivery contract. Feasibility and source eligibility are confirmed before production scope is agreed.

Can WSA provide historical data or backfill a time series?

Forward history can begin when scheduled collection starts. Historical backfill depends on whether eligible source pages or archives expose the required past observations and whether they can be collected consistently. Coverage, dates, and limitations are evaluated separately rather than assumed.

How are point-in-time records and later corrections handled?

A scoped contract can retain observation and retrieval times, source references, record state, schema version, and revision context. Corrections or restatements should create an explicit change record instead of silently rewriting what was previously observed.

How is entity matching handled?

Proxy and page-access API customers own cross-source entity resolution. Scheduled or managed programs can include agreed identifiers, aliases, source IDs, thresholds, review states, and change rules when resolution is part of the contract.

How are coverage, completeness, freshness, and accuracy measured?

Measures are defined against the agreed source and record contract. They can include retrieval coverage, field availability, reviewed extraction checks, duplicate and conflict rates, delivery conformance, observation age, continuity gaps, and exception counts. No universal quality percentage is assumed.

What happens when a source changes or an observation is missed?

Responsibility depends on the operating model. Customers maintain their collectors and parsers with proxies or page-access APIs. WSA maintains the connectors it operates for scheduled and managed programs, with remediation, impact reporting, and recoverable backfill defined by the service contract.

Which cadences, formats, and destinations are available?

Request-time products respond when called. Scheduled and managed programs use an agreed cadence, format, and destination based on technical feasibility. Specific frequencies, formats, destinations, and delivery commitments are confirmed during scoping rather than promised universally.

Can personal data or restricted sources be included?

Public availability does not make every field or use appropriate. Personal or sensitive fields, restricted sources, licensing, purpose, geography, retention, access, and permitted users require separate review. Sources or fields may be excluded from the approved scope.

Does WSA provide investment advice or guarantee predictive performance?

No. WSA provides collection infrastructure and contracted public-web observations. Your team owns the methodology, feature engineering, models, lawful use, conclusions, portfolio decisions, and assessment of whether the data is suitable for its purpose.

Request a representative signal sample

Test one research question against real source behavior.

Bring the target entities, source candidates, required fields, history window, and a sample output. We will map the collection panel, point-in-time record, quality states, and operating ownership.

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