Crawl Quora

[Dave Angel]

Umesh Sharma wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am writing a crawler in python, which crawl quora. I can't read the content of quora without login. But google/bing crawls quora. One thing i can do is use browser automation and login in my account and the go links by link and crawl content, but this method is slow. So can any one tell me how should i start in writing this crawler.
>
>
I had never heard of quora.  And I had to hunt a bit to find a link to
this website.  When you post a question here which refers to a
non-Python site, you really should include a link to it.

You start with reading the page:  http://www.quora.com/about/tos

which you agreed to when you created your account with them.  At one
place it seems pretty clear that unless you make specific arrangements
with Quora, you're limited to using their API.

I suspect that they bend over backwards to get Google and the other big
names to index their stuff.  But that doesn't make it legal for you to
do the same.

In particular, the section labeled "Rules" makes constraints on
automated crawling.  And so do other parts of the TOS.  Crawling is
permissible, but not scraping.  What's that mean?  I dunno.  Perhaps
scraping is what you're describing above as "method is slow."

I'm going to be looking to see what API's they offer, if any.  I'm
creating an account now.

-- 
DaveA