What technology does a site like PriceScan use?

#1
Hazelmn

Posted 23 March 2009 - 05:56 PM

Newbie

Members
2 posts

I have an idea for a industry-niche website, and would like to set up some code (or a bot) which would go out to 4-6 company sites and aggregate the prices of approximately 200-400 similiar products.

How does someone like PriceScan.com do this? Is this a major programming feat, or something that is relatively straightforward?

I'm a programming novice but am running a successful website. I want to learn more about this.

#2
Guest_Jordan_*

Posted 23 March 2009 - 06:04 PM

Guests

They use ASP and I'm sure some database. I'd guess MS SQL or MySQL but it could be just about any database. You could create a similar website using ASP and/or any other server side language plus a database. Server side languages include: Ruby, ASP, PHP, Perl, C++ as CGI, and you can use some other languages like Python but they are not generally popular for web applications.

#3
Hazelmn

Posted 23 March 2009 - 06:51 PM

Newbie

Members
2 posts

Thanks. So on a scale of 1-10, how difficult would this type of thing be to program? I wouldn't be able to do it, trying to figure out how difficult it would be to find someone to do this type of thing (and how expensive).

The number of webpages I'd need to go to in order to "scrape" the prices and products would be less than 10, probably 6.