All,

I'm trying to learn scrapers, webcrawlers, search engines and CURL. I've chosen to interrogate the
following sites:



These show organizations/businesses by search type/category, so effective in
finding potential clients.

Since I only run Linux, I have the following questions as I consider my approaches:

Code:

<meta name="category" content="">
<meta name="subcategory" content="">

Where the content is the category or subcategory name

EX:

Code:

<meta name="category" content="technology">
<meta name="subcategory" content="retail">
<meta name="subcategory" content="electronics">
<meta name="subcategory" content="computers">
<meta name="subcategory" content="laptops">
<meta name="subcategory" content="20+ inch screen">

or

Code:

<meta name="category" content="technology">
<meta name="subcategory" content="manufacturer">
<meta name="subcategory" content="electronics">
<meta name="subcategory" content="computers">
<meta name="subcategory" content="laptops">
<meta name="subcategory" content="20+ inch screen">

I'm processing these into a temp DB, but final repository for the data will be
both SugarCRM CE and PHPList.

There is differing information available on each of these at differing sites and
very confusing, as many businesses
will show on all these, but some listing have website and email and others do not
so will be updating existing records with blank fields, when the info is found on
one of the other sites.

Trying to avoid the time consuming process of calling each, however the level of
detail I need for my app I'm writing may still require the calls. I'll see where
I'm at once the intial automation is finished.

I look at all the HOWTOs and they are like GREEk to me, and so not comprehending what I'm
reading. Going to need some help with the comprehension before it all registers and
I come to a basic understanding of both terms and techniques, so sorry to bother you
with a NEWBIE level understanding of this!

Cheers!

OMR/TBNK