How to Scrape Google News: Step-by-Step Guide
Google News stands as a tailored news aggregation service that collects and spotlights significant stories globally, tailored to the user’s interests. It aggregates articles and headlines from diverse sources, making them readily accessible on any device. A noteworthy feature, “Full Coverage,” offers an in-depth look at news stories, showcasing a variety of viewpoints from multiple media outlets.
This guide walks you through constructing a Python-based Google News scraper from the ground up. It will equip you with the knowledge to overcome the challenges posed by Google News’s anti-bot mechanisms. Prior to diving in, it’s advisable to familiarize yourself with the basics of news scraping.
Enhance Your Google News Scraping with Oxylabs’ SERP API
Our goal with this scraper is to simplify your scraping tasks, both present and future, by efficiently managing any complications that arise. With Oxylabs’ SERP API, you can effortlessly collect data in real-time and access search results from virtually anywhere, bypassing concerns related to anti-bot measures.
Moreover, Oxylabs offers a one-week free trial, allowing you to extensively test and refine your scraper while exploring its features.
Initial Setup — Obtaining Oxylabs’ SERP API Credentials
Register and sign into the dashboard to generate and retrieve your SERP API credentials, essential for the steps that follow.
Installing Required Libraries
To get started, install the necessary Python libraries: requests, bs4, and pandas. Utilizing pandas, you’ll craft a CSV file to archive the headlines from Google News.
Install Pandas Command:
pip install pandas
Making API Requests
Prepare your payload and credentials to dispatch requests via the SERP API. Rendering JavaScript requires setting the ‘render’ parameter to ‘html’, indicating to the API to process JavaScript. Additionally, set ‘source’ to ‘google’ and specify the target URL. Remember to substitute ‘USERNAME’ and ‘PASSWORD’ with your actual credentials.
Payload and Credentials Setup:
Execute the POST request through the requests module.
API Request Command:
python
Copy code
response = requests.post(
‘https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries',
auth=credential,
json=payload,
)
print(response.status_code)
A successful request will return a status code of 200. Refer to the API documentation for any other status codes encountered.
Inspecting Web Elements
To parse news headlines, identify the necessary HTML elements by inspecting the Google News homepage in a web browser. Use the developer tools accessed via right-click or CTRL SHIFT I.
Data Parsing
All news headlines are encapsulated within
tags. Utilize the developer tools to examine the source HTML and devise your parsing strategy.
Parsing Command:
data = []
soup = BeautifulSoup(response.json()[“results”][0][“content”], “html.parser”)
for headline in soup.find_all(“h4”):
data.append(headline.text)
The find_all() method enables the collection of all headlines, which are then added to the ‘data’ list for CSV export.
Exporting Data to CSV
First, compile the data into a DataFrame, then export it to a CSV file, opting out of including an index column for a cleaner file.
Data Export Command:
df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df.to_csv(“google_news_data.csv”, index=False)
Conclusion
Using Oxylabs’ web scraping solutions empowers you to stay updated with the latest from Google News. Utilize the robust Oxylabs’ Google News Scraper API to enhance your scraping projects. The strategies outlined here enable effective Google News data extraction, free from the concerns of proxy rotation and anti-bot mechanisms.”
