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Dianping Business Data Scraping and Analysis

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Table of Contents
Large-scale web scraping project extracting children’s library information from DianPing.com across over 2000 Chinese cities using advanced scraping techniques.

Project Overview
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This comprehensive web scraping project involved extracting detailed information about children’s libraries across China from DianPing.com (Chinese equivalent of Yelp). The project overcame significant technical challenges including CAPTCHA systems, dynamic content loading, and anti-scraping measures to collect valuable data for research purposes.

Technologies Used
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Python Selenium WebDriver BeautifulSoup HTTP Requests XPath Web Scraping

Technical Challenges & Solutions
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Anti-Scraping Countermeasures
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  • CAPTCHA Bypass: Developed techniques to handle and bypass CAPTCHA challenges
  • Session Management: Implemented sophisticated HTTP session handling
  • Cookie Extraction: Used Selenium WebDriver to extract and manage website cookies
  • Header Modification: Modified request headers to avoid detection

Data Extraction Pipeline
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  • URL Collection: Retrieved over 2000 unique library URLs across Chinese cities
  • HTML Parsing: Iteratively parsed HTML content using BeautifulSoup
  • XPath Navigation: Precisely located data elements using XPath expressions
  • Data Export: Automated CSV export for structured data analysis

Scalability Solutions
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  • Batch Processing: Processed cities in batches to manage server load
  • Error Handling: Robust error handling for network timeouts and failures
  • Rate Limiting: Implemented intelligent delays to avoid IP blocking
  • Data Validation: Quality checks to ensure data integrity

Key Achievements
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Data Collection Scale
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  • Geographic Coverage: Successfully scraped data from 2000+ Chinese cities
  • Library Database: Created comprehensive database of children’s libraries
  • Structured Output: Generated clean, structured CSV files for analysis

Technical Innovation
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  • Dynamic Content Handling: Successfully extracted data from JavaScript-rendered pages
  • Multi-threaded Processing: Implemented concurrent scraping for efficiency
  • Robust Architecture: Built fault-tolerant scraping infrastructure

Research Impact
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This project contributed to educational research by providing:

  • Geographic Distribution Analysis: Understanding of children’s library accessibility
  • Resource Mapping: Comprehensive mapping of educational resources across China
  • Data Foundation: Clean dataset for further academic research

Skills Demonstrated
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  • Web Scraping Expertise: Advanced techniques for large-scale data extraction
  • Python Programming: Efficient automation and data processing
  • Problem Solving: Creative solutions to technical challenges
  • Data Engineering: Building robust data collection pipelines
  • Research Methodology: Systematic approach to academic data collection
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