Web Scraping IMDB Data with N8N: A No-Code Approach

Web scraping is a powerful technique for extracting data from websites, and with no-code platforms like N8N, the process becomes accessible even to those without programming experience. This article explores how to scrape IMDB data using N8N and save it to CSV format.

Understanding HTML Structure for Effective Scraping

To successfully scrape a website, it’s essential to understand how web pages are structured. Common HTML tags include div, span, paragraph, anchor tags, images, lists (ordered and unordered), tables, forms, inputs, buttons, sections, articles, labels, heading tags (H1-H6), navigation bars, iFrames, and meta tags.

Additionally, websites use CSS with classes and IDs to style elements. When scraping, you’ll need to understand how to target elements using:

HTML tags (e.g., h3)
CSS classes (using dot notation: tag.classname)
IDs
Attributes (using square brackets)

Step-by-Step IMDB Scraping with N8N

1. Setting Up the Workflow Trigger

The workflow starts with a trigger – in this case, a test workflow that executes when you click the test button.

2. Creating a URL Collection

Use the “Edit Fields” node to create an array of IMDB URLs you want to scrape. This creates a list that will be processed one by one.

3. Processing URLs Individually

The “Split Out” node takes the list of URLs and sends them individually to the next steps, essentially creating a loop that processes each URL separately.

4. Making HTTP Requests

For each URL, an HTTP request is made using the GET method. Be sure to set appropriate headers, including the user agent, to avoid being blocked by the website.

5. Extracting HTML Content

This is the crucial step where data is extracted from the HTML. For IMDB data, you’ll want to target:

Title: Using a span tag with specific class names
Rating: Using CSS selectors to find the rating element
Plot/Description: Extracting the movie plot using appropriate selectors

6. Finding the Right Selectors

To find the correct CSS selectors:

Navigate to the IMDB page
Right-click on the element you want to extract (e.g., the title)
Select “Inspect” to open the developer console
Right-click on the highlighted HTML and select “Copy Element”
Analyze the element to determine the appropriate selector (tag, class, attribute)

7. Converting to CSV

The final step is using the “Convert to CSV” node to transform the extracted data into a downloadable CSV file with columns for title, rating, and plot.

Benefits of No-Code Scraping

Using N8N for web scraping offers several advantages:

No programming knowledge required
Visual workflow creation
Easy data transformation
Simple integration with other systems
Quick setup and execution

This approach makes web scraping accessible to business analysts, marketers, researchers, and others who need data but don’t have coding expertise.

Practical Applications

This IMDB scraping technique can be adapted for various purposes:

Creating movie databases for recommendations
Analyzing trends in film ratings
Collecting plot descriptions for content analysis
Gathering data for machine learning models
Monitoring changes to movie information

With the right selectors and workflow configuration, you can extract virtually any public data from websites using this no-code approach.