How Can You Scrape Any Website? AI Scrapers vs. Templates vs. Manual Setup

Updated

You can scrape most public web pages in one of three ways: an AI agent that reads the page and extracts the fields you describe, a pre-built template for a popular site that returns the same columns every time, or a manual selector/script setup you configure yourself. The right choice depends on whether the site is well-known, whether the fields you need are stable, and whether you want to spend AI credits. Thunderbit, an agentic web scraper available as a Chrome extension, combines the first two approaches and exports results to Google Sheets, Airtable, or Notion — but "any website" has real boundaries you should check before committing.

The three approaches at a glance

Dimension AI agent scraping Template scraping Manual setup (selectors/scripts)
Best for Unstructured or unfamiliar pages, long text, PDFs/images Popular sites (Amazon, eBay, Google Maps) with fixed fields Sites you control or scrape repeatedly with strict requirements
Setup effort Describe the fields in plain language Pick a template, run it Write and maintain selectors or code
Result consistency Varies with page layout and AI interpretation Same fields every run Fully deterministic once built
Cost signal Uses AI credits (per Thunderbit's page) No AI credits used, per Thunderbit Your own tooling and maintenance time
Skill needed None stated None stated Technical

Thunderbit's page states it is "built for sales & ops teams" and requires "no setup or technical skills," and that templates for popular sites give "the same fields every time, instantly, with no AI credits used." Those are the vendor's claims; treat the cost and consistency columns as the trade-off to verify on your own target sites.

When each approach fits

Choose a template when the site is popular and fields are fixed

If you are pulling price, title, and rating from Amazon or listings from Google Maps, a template is the faster and more repeatable route. You get identical columns on every run, which matters when you feed a spreadsheet or CRM. Thunderbit lists pre-built templates for Amazon, eBay, Google Maps, and similar sites.

Choose AI agent scraping when the page is unfamiliar or messy

For a directory, a marketplace search page, or an article, an AI agent can infer fields from your description. Thunderbit also supports restructuring output during the scrape — adding summaries, categorization, or translation — and scraping long-form text such as articles and transcripts. This is the right pick when you don't know the page structure in advance or need the data reformatted in one step.

Choose manual setup when you need determinism or have engineering capacity

If you must guarantee exact selectors, handle complex pagination logic, or run at scale on your own infrastructure, a scripted scraper gives you full control. The cost is setup and ongoing maintenance when the site changes.

Where "any website" stops working

The phrase overpromises. Before you start, check these boundaries:

  • Login walls and gated content. Pages behind an account require you to be signed in; a scraper extension runs in your browser session, so results depend on your access. Don't assume a tool bypasses authentication.
  • Dynamically loaded content. If data appears only after scrolling or clicking, confirm the tool waits for it. Missing rows often mean the page hadn't finished loading.
  • Anti-bot restrictions. Some sites block automated access. There is no universal workaround; test on your actual target before building a workflow around it.
  • PDFs and images. Thunderbit states it can pull contact details from websites, PDFs, and images. If your source is a scanned PDF, verify extraction quality on a sample first.
  • Pagination. Multi-page results are a common failure point. Check whether the tool follows "next" pages or only captures the first screen.

Getting data out

Thunderbit's page lists export to Google Sheets, Airtable, and Notion, plus copy-paste into other apps. Decide your destination before scraping so you choose fields that map cleanly to your sheet columns — reformatting after export wastes the one-step advantage AI extraction offers.

Common failures and what to check first

  • Fields misaligned or in the wrong column. The AI mapped your description to the wrong element. Rewrite the field description more specifically and re-run.
  • Missing pages of results. Pagination wasn't followed. Confirm the tool is set to capture all pages, not just the visible one.
  • Empty or partial data. The page likely loads content dynamically or blocked the request. Test on a single page manually and compare.
  • Format doesn't match your sheet. Use the formatting/calculation step during scraping rather than fixing it afterward.
  • Inconsistent results between runs. Expected with AI extraction on changing layouts; switch to a template if the site is supported and consistency matters.

A practical decision path

  1. Is the site popular and are your fields standard? Use a template — no AI credits, consistent columns.
  2. Is the page unfamiliar, long-form, or in need of restructuring? Use AI agent scraping and describe fields precisely.
  3. Do you need guaranteed determinism or run at scale? Build a manual scraper.
  4. Before scaling any approach, test one page, verify pagination and dynamic loading, and confirm your export destination accepts the fields.

Thunderbit offers a free tier and is distributed through the Chrome Web Store; check its pricing page for current plan limits before relying on it for volume work.