Extract names, phone numbers, email addresses from web sites into a database

Posted on October 17, 2008 at 5:23 am

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could convert a bunch of data from Super Pages or Yellow Pages into an Excel table or an Access database? If you have a business where you need to take a large list of names, phone numbers, email addresses, street addresses and put them into your CRM database or into Outlook, then you might be interested in this nifty little freeware app.

ZoloPages is a free program that can extract data from a web site or web page (web data mining) and convert it into a more user-friendly format like Excel (XLS), Access (CSV), or XML! Personally, I don’t have a business, but I am sure I could use it to save a list of doctors in my area or my favorite films, etc.

The way the program works is that it has some pre-configured sites that it works with, such as Yellow Pages, Super Pages, 411, etc. You download the program and go to to the File menu and choose Open a Zolo Page.

Now you can choose from the list of web sites that it can extract data from. There are a couple of US ones at the top and then a bunch of other ones from different countries. These are called Zolo Masks. You have to have a mask in order to capture data from a website!

You can either download more masks at Zolo Masks or you can create your own mask for the particular website you want to extract data from. If you create your own masks, you can then do things like go to AutoTrader.com and download a list of a bunch of used cars in your area that you are looking to buy. Or you can go to Eventful.com and download a list of all events going on locally in your area!

You get the idea? By default, it’s limited to only a few sites, but if you spend a little time creating your own Zolo Mask, you can basically extract data from any website! There is also an extensive help included with the program so you can figure out exactly how to create your own mask. It’s worth to note that Super Pages also lets you search for restaurants, physicians, hotels, car dealers and more in your area.

Once you’ve loaded the site and performed the search you click on the Select and Save button to save the data into XLS, XML, or CSV format.

You also have other options such as inverting the name, capturing the full address or just the street, and more. Note that you actually browse the website within the program itself on the Surf & Collect page.

I ran it myself to get a list of moving companies in Atlanta, GA and it worked pretty well! It extracted the name, address, city, state, zip, phone, fax, and website name from the web site in just a few minutes!

So if you are looking for a free web mining or data mining program that can pull data from web sites and web pages into Excel or Access database, then you will want to check out Zolo Pages. Enjoy!

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Comments

2 Responses to “Extract names, phone numbers, email addresses from web sites into a database”

Pavan Kumar said on : October 17th, 2008 at 6:02 am

Bad tool, its a boon for spammers

Ben said on : September 10th, 2009 at 3:36 am

I have a question. I am launching a product for the World Cup Soccer in 2010 in South Africa. The most cost-effective way to contact all the hotels, guesthouses, B&B’s and lodges in South Africa is to send these businesses a once of email. My intention is not to spam or gather info from other websites. The problem is that I can only get the database from 1 reliable website, which is the Tourism Grading Council website from South Africa.

I have to retrieve almost 500 000 from this site by going into each and every page manually. No need to explain my predicament with that!

I cannot find a programme where I can extract all emails from 1 specific site. Does anybody know how to do this.

My intention is a once off email, not to spam.