Best Web Scrapers

Choosing Data Delivery Formats

Match delivery formats to stakeholder workflows so scraped datasets arrive clean, versioned, and analysis ready.

Best Web Scrapers Research· Data Platform Strategist
Published
Published April 30, 2024
Updated
Updated April 30, 2024
Read time
1 min read

Delivering a dataset is more than dropping a CSV in cloud storage. The format and protocol you choose should plug directly into the tools already powering decisions inside your organisation.

Evaluate consumer requirements

  • Analytics teams often prefer Parquet or Delta tables in a warehouse so they can join against existing models.
  • Operations teams may want CSV exports delivered via secure file transfer for ingest into ERP tools.
  • Product teams typically consume JSON through APIs that power internal dashboards and alerting systems.

Document every consumer, their refresh cadence, and the validations they expect. Align on SLAs before scheduling crawls.

Provide multiple delivery paths when necessary

flowchart LR
  A[Scraper output] --> B{Transform?}
  B -->|Yes| C[Normalize & enrich]
  B -->|No| D[Archive raw payload]
  C --> E[Warehouse table]
  C --> F[Analytics API]
  D --> G[Cold storage]
  E --> H[BI dashboards]
  F --> I[Product integrations]

Modern teams expose both batch and streaming options. Deliver a curated table to the warehouse for analysts, a webhook or queue for operational alerts, and a cold-storage archive in case auditors request historical snapshots.

Operational tips

  • Version your schemas using semantic versioning so partners know when to re-run tests.
  • Attach data-quality summaries—record counts, null percentages, and distribution changes—to every delivery.
  • Automate retries and notifications in case downstream systems reject a payload.

When delivery aligns with stakeholder workflows, scraping projects graduate from side experiments to trusted sources powering roadmaps.

Frequently asked questions

Should I deliver raw HTML or structured records?
Send structured records for daily stakeholders and archive raw HTML or screenshots separately so analysts can debug parsing issues when needed.
How do I prevent schema drift from breaking dashboards?
Publish schemas through contracts, store historical versions, and alert subscribers whenever new fields ship or types change.

Related tools

Curated platforms that match the workflows covered in this guide.