Historical News Extractor: Using Keyword

In today’s high-tech world, working our way through an ocean of data and information isn’t always a piece of cake. Several new platforms have been increasingly emerging as data and news extraction tools. This is further proving to be a boon for mankind, especially regarding historical news extraction.

Recent trends show an increasing demand for historical news extraction. A layman would wonder what the possible reasons for the same. The answer to that lies in our day-to-day lives.

For instance, you may come across an interview with someone who lost a family member to the Russia-Ukraine War, in 2022. While most of us might have heard of the incident, only a few of us knew what happened. To fulfill the curiosity of the human mind, historical news extraction tools can be used to find all the relevant information on the same.

Furthermore, a fair share of demand for historical news extraction tools comes from investors and analysts. The information not only helps them identify patterns but also plays a vital role in planning.

The analysts take historical news into account to make well-informed predictions.

Before we further proceed, it only makes sense to go through various methods of historical news extraction.

Ways of Extracting Historical News

With the increasing demand for historical news and facts, the market has been flooded with various new historical news-extracting tools and methods. Some of them are stated below:

• News Aggregators

The foremost and most widely used way to extract historical news is via a news aggregator. These platforms use web crawlers to collect desirable data and present it to users in a comprehensible format. Some of the popular news aggregators include:

1. Newsdata.io
2. Google News Archives

• Individual Websites

The individual websites are yet another excellent source of historical news. Websites like The New York Times, The Times, and The Washington Post provide digitalized news archives from all over the world.

• Specialized Databases

Using specialized databases is proving to be of great advantage in historical news extraction. But how? These databases give the user access to academic journals, newspaper articles, and even primary sources of historical news.

• Web Scraping Tools

Web Scraping tools extract relevant historical news directly from various sources and presents it in one place in a comprehensible format. Some examples include:

1. Beautiful Soup
2. Scrapy

• Text Analysis Tools

These tools use keywords to extract anything and everything related to the given data the user is looking for. Some examples include:

1. MonkeyLearn
2. TextRazor

• NLP Tools

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a machine learning technology that helps interpret, comprehend, and manipulate human instructions for the computer. NLP Tools process whatever command is being given and help the computer find desired information efficiently. Examples of NLP tools include:

1. Google Cloud
2. spaCy

Historical News Extraction using Keyword

Now that we are aware of the different ways one can extract historical news, one might wonder how a particular keyword can be used for historical news extraction.

Extracting historical data using a keyword is a powerful tool that has been gaining ground in the market and for all the right reasons. This tool helps extract data that isn’t just precise but also easier to extract.

Many websites like Newsdata.io and NewsAPI.ai are providing this feature. For better understanding, we are taking Newsdata.io as a primary example.

Moving forward we will now focus on the steps that one can follow for efficient extraction.

1. Finalizing the Keyword

The most important step is to select the keyword that resonates the most with the information you want to look for. This helps search for more topic-oriented information and prevents heavy data processing.

For instance, you want information regarding the Russia-Ukraine War of 2022. So, the keyword in this case would be “Russia-Ukraine War, 2022.”

2. Choosing q, qInTitle, and qInMeta

The next step is to choose whether to use q, qInTitle, or qInMeta parameters to search for relevant historical news.

For Instance,

• If we put “q=Russia-Ukraine War, 2022,” the API will fetch all articles that have Russia-Ukraine War in titles, URLs, meta descriptions, or full content.

• If we put “qInTitle= Russia-Ukraine War, 2022,” the API will fetch all articles with Russia-Ukraine War, 2022 in their title only.

• If we put “qInMeta= Russia-Ukraine War, 2022,” the API will fetch all the articles that contain Russia-Ukraine War in titles, URLs, descriptions, or keywords.

3. Analyzing the data

Once the request is made, the API fetches all the relevant data on the historical news you are looking for. After processing it, it presents it to the user for further analysis.

Once the relevant information about the given news is collected, it can be used by different kinds of people for different purposes.

Optimum ways for historical news extraction

While a layman might consider this method of news extraction too complex, it’s only a matter of time before he gets the hang of things. Once that happens, the user looks for ways to increase his efficiency.

Some key factors that can enhance a user’s news extraction process are stated below:

• Clear instructions

The clearer the instructions, the more precise the process of historical news extraction is.

Clear instructions help the website segregate through tons and tons of data, thus preventing the processing of unnecessary data and increasing the efficiency of the process as a whole.

• Use filters

Websites lately are providing several filter options to ensure as accurate extraction as possible. These filter options in websites like Newsdata.io, let you adjust the sources, countries, languages, categories, and even authors.

Furthermore, it lets you set the period you want news to be extracted from. This feature also helps with quick analysis of the extracted data.

• Using different scripting languages

Scripting languages such as Python and R can be used for repetitive tasks and bulk extractions. This enhances the processing, parsing, and storing of the extracted historical news.

• Efficient use of resources

One might wonder what exactly would be considered the efficient utilization of resources. To answer that question, let’s just say that mere article extraction isn’t sufficient to ensure optimal results.

For better results, one must go the extra mile and look for extensive documents, tutorials, and blogs made available by Newsdata.io.

• Text Analysis Tools

Text analysis tools allow the user to perform sentiment analysis, entity extraction, and topic modeling. These tools can further be used to analyze extracted news articles for underlying trends, conduct sentiment analysis, and identify key topics.

Moreover, this helps provide a deep insight into the given topic. Newsdata.io is one of the few websites providing this feature.

These were a few of the many ways to ensure optimal news extraction. The above-mentioned steps range from steps that can be adapted to day-to-day working to steps when a more intensive extraction is to be carried out.

Conclusion

The process of efficient extraction involves more than just finding the topic. Choosing a website with reliable sources is as important as choosing the right keyword for the content you are looking for.

Knowing your way around how a machine operates and the basics of web scraping and its workings is always an added advantage. A user who isn’t sure of what it is that he is looking for often fails to get the desired output.

But with the easy-to-operate feature of Newsdata.io, getting a fair idea of the news a user is looking for is a great way to go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. What is a historical new extractor using a keyword?

A historical news extractor using keywords is a tool or piece of software that allows users to search for and extract historical news articles based on specific keywords.

Q2. What are the benefits of using historical news extraction?

Enhanced understanding, technological advancements, and informed decision-making are among several benefits of historical news extraction.

Q3. Can a historical news extractor using a keyword filter result in results by date or publication?

Yes, platforms like Newsdata.io let the user filter results by date or publication while extracting historical news using keywords.

Q4. Is there a limit to the number of keywords that can be used with a historical news extractor?

The limit on the number of keywords varies from platform to platform. Websites like Newsdata.io allow a limit of 512 characters while extracting news.

Q5. Can a historical news extractor using a keyword extract articles from non-English sources?

Some news extractors are capable of extracting articles from non-English sources, depending on the language capabilities of the tool or software.