# Import.io — expanded reference

> Import.io provides web data extraction and infrastructure for AI, including a self-service extraction platform, managed web data delivery, Aperture pricing intelligence and a Web Scraper MCP server for AI agents.

Self-service extraction, Managed Services, Aperture and MCP are distinct offerings. Consult the linked product and pricing pages for current availability, allowances, billing units and contractual terms. Do not apply one product’s prices or guarantees to another.

This is an Import.io-published guide to its own website, not an independent assessment. Comparison claims should be checked against the dated sources on each comparison page. Glossary links point to retained term pages or the relevant definition on the glossary hub.

Generated from the site build: 2026-10-19. This date records generation, not independent verification of every claim.

## Products

- [Web data extraction](https://www.import.io/data-extraction): Extract structured web data with Import.io. Build no-code extractors or use APIs, with browser rendering, scheduling and data delivery in one platform.
- [Managed Services](https://www.import.io/managed-services): Managed web data extraction for reliable, structured data at scale. Import.io handles access, extraction, validation, monitoring and delivery.
- [Aperture pricing intelligence](https://www.import.io/aperture): Monitor competitor prices, availability and assortment with Aperture. Match products, track MAP compliance and explore your market with pricing intelligence.
- [Web Scraper MCP](https://www.import.io/mcp): Connect AI agents to the Import.io Web Scraper MCP server for browser rendering and structured web data extraction. Works with compatible MCP clients.
- [Products overview](https://www.import.io/products): Explore Import.io web data products: self-service extraction, Aperture pricing intelligence, Web Scraper MCP and fully managed delivery.

## Pricing and getting started

- [Pricing and plan entitlements](https://www.import.io/pricing): Compare Import.io web data extraction plans, query allowances and features. Explore the free trial, managed services and pricing intelligence options.
- [Free trial](https://www.import.io/web-scraping/free-trial): Try Import.io web data extraction free for 30 days with 5,000 successful queries and no credit card. Build extractors and explore structured data delivery.
- [Contact sales](https://www.import.io/contact/contact-sales): Talk to Import.io about web scraping, managed data, Aperture or MCP. Share your sources and requirements for a response within one business day.
- [Integrations](https://www.import.io/integrations): Connect Import.io to 50 tools: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and agent frameworks over MCP; Sheets, Excel and BI via endpoints; Snowflake, BigQuery, S3 and more.

## Solutions

- [AI and LLMs](https://www.import.io/solutions/ai): Build AI systems on current, structured web data for training, retrieval, evaluation and agent workflows, with provenance and production delivery.
- [Retailers](https://www.import.io/solutions/retailers): Track competitor prices, assortment and availability with matched product data. Bring store-level pricing and validated feeds into your retail pricing workflow.
- [Brands](https://www.import.io/solutions/brands): Monitor brand content, search rank, pricing, MAP compliance, availability and sellers across retailers and marketplaces with Import.io digital shelf data.
- [Digital shelf](https://www.import.io/solutions/digital-shelf): Measure your digital shelf across retailers with search, content, price, availability, review and assortment data. Understand the metrics behind performance.
- [Analytics providers](https://www.import.io/solutions/analytics-providers): Build analytics products on managed web data. Capture, match, validate and deliver product, price, stock, review and seller data across retailers.

## Industries

- [Industries overview](https://www.import.io/industries): Explore web data solutions for retail, finance, AI, travel, real estate, healthcare, government and other industries.
- [Retail and Ecommerce](https://www.import.io/industries/retail-ecommerce): Store- and zip-level competitor prices, promotions, availability and assortment, matched to your catalogue and refreshed hourly or daily.
- [Consumer Brands](https://www.import.io/solutions/brands): Monitor brand content, search rank, pricing, MAP compliance, availability and sellers across retailers and marketplaces with Import.io digital shelf data.
- [Financial Services](https://www.import.io/industries/financial-services): Point-in-time web data for investors, lenders and risk teams: prices, jobs, filings, registries and sanctions, entity-mapped at capture.
- [AI and Technology](https://www.import.io/industries/ai-technology): Training corpora with provenance, web access for AI agents through MCP, and competitive intelligence across pricing pages, changelogs and documentation.
- [Data and Analytics Providers](https://www.import.io/solutions/analytics-providers): Build analytics products on managed web data. Capture, match, validate and deliver product, price, stock, review and seller data across retailers.
- [Travel and Hospitality](https://www.import.io/industries/travel-hospitality): Hotel rates by channel, stay date and point of sale, plus parity, fares, event demand and reviews, captured as travellers see them.
- [Real Estate](https://www.import.io/industries/real-estate): Residential and commercial listings resolved to properties across portals, with price history, days on market, rentals and building permits.
- [Marketplaces and Classifieds](https://www.import.io/industries/marketplaces-classifieds): Listings, sellers, prices and listing velocity across marketplaces and classifieds, with lifecycle tracking and cross-platform seller resolution.
- [Media and Publishing](https://www.import.io/industries/media-publishing): Articles from thousands of outlets, clustered by story, with first-publisher detection, syndication tracking and licensed-content reuse monitoring.
- [Automotive](https://www.import.io/industries/automotive): VIN-level dealer inventory, pricing and days on lot, regional OEM incentives, remarketing signals, and aftermarket parts and MAP monitoring.
- [Healthcare and Life Sciences](https://www.import.io/industries/healthcare-life-sciences): Public healthcare data structured from trial registries, regulatory changes, prices, transparency files and provider directories. No patient data.
- [Government and Public Sector](https://www.import.io/industries/government-public-sector): Web prices for official statistics, consumer-protection evidence, tenders, sanctions, registries and legislation, with a documented audit trail.

## Company and reference

- [About Import.io](https://www.import.io/about-us): Import.io has turned websites into structured data since 2012. Part of Neuralogics: self-service extraction, managed web data, Aperture and MCP.
- [Comparisons](https://www.import.io/comparisons): Import.io compared with Firecrawl, Exa, Bright Data, Zyte, Apify, Octoparse, Browse AI, PromptCloud, Price2Spy and more, route by route with primary sources.
- [Glossary](https://www.import.io/glossary): 288 web data terms defined: scraping, crawling, proxies, anti-bot, data quality, MAP, share of shelf, product matching, RAG, MCP, GDPR and more.


## Comparison summaries

- [Import.io and Apify compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-apify): Apify is a platform for running web scraping and automation programs called Actors, with a large store of ready-made Actors and a Professional Services…
- [Import.io and Bright Data compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-bright-data): Bright Data is best known for proxy networks and unblocking, and also sells scraper APIs, ready-made datasets and a fully managed data acquisition…
- [Import.io and Browse AI compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-browse-ai): Browse AI is a no-code AI scraping and website monitoring platform with 250+ prebuilt robots, spreadsheet and app integrations, a REST API and…
- [Import.io and Browserless compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-browserless): Browserless provides managed headless browsers as a service, browser APIs over HTTP, an MCP server and a self-hosted option, for scraping, automation,…
- [Import.io and Competera compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-competera): Competera is an AI retail price optimisation platform for enterprise retailers, with competitive data (matching, scraping and crawling), dynamic, promo…
- [Import.io and Crawlbase compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-crawlbase): Crawlbase offers a Crawling API with JavaScript rendering and anti-bot handling, an Enterprise Crawler that delivers asynchronous crawls to storage, a…
- [Import.io and Decodo compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-decodo): Decodo sells proxy networks — residential, ISP, mobile and datacenter — a Site Unblocker, and a Web Scraping API with 100+ templates and a free plan.…
- [Import.io and Diffbot compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-diffbot): Diffbot offers automatic extraction, a Knowledge Graph of entities, natural language processing and web search APIs on credit-based plans, with…
- [Import.io and Exa compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-exa): Exa is a search engine built for AI, with Search, Contents, Agent and Monitors APIs, an MCP server and connectors for Claude and ChatGPT, and a free…
- [Import.io and Firecrawl compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-firecrawl): Firecrawl is a web data API for AI applications that scrapes, crawls and searches the web and returns markdown or structured JSON, with an open-source…
- [Import.io vs General Web Scraping Tools](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-general-web-scraping-tool): This page compares Import.io with a customer-operated scraping stack assembled from selected tools: for example a hosted scraping tool for extraction,…
- [Import.io and Grepsr compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-grepsr): Grepsr offers fully managed data-as-a-service, custom and ready-to-use scrapers, a self-serve data management platform, AI extraction, a web scraping…
- [Import.io compared with in-house scraping](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-in-house-scraping): This page compares Import.io with an in-house stack: an open-source framework such as Scrapy or Playwright, a commercial proxy or unblocking service, a…
- [Import.io and Intelligence Node compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-intelligence-node): Intelligence Node offers brand, retailer, data and marketplace intelligence: price monitoring, optimisation, dynamic pricing, product matching and…
- [Import.io and Jina AI Reader compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-jina-ai): Jina AI’s Reader converts a URL into LLM-friendly content by prefixing it with r.jina.ai, with s.jina.ai for web search and an MCP server, with higher…
- [Import.io and Kadoa compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-kadoa): Kadoa positions itself as the web data layer for finance: AI agents build, monitor and maintain web data pipelines for investment teams, with Monitors,…
- [Import.io and Minderest compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-minderest): Minderest provides price monitoring and catalogue intelligence for retailers and brands, with product matching, exports and API integration into BI…
- [Import.io and Nimble compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-nimble): Nimble offers Agent, Search and Extract APIs for web research and structured data from URLs, with an MCP server, AI plugins and integrations such as…
- [Import.io and Octoparse compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-octoparse): Octoparse offers a visual, no-code scraping application with cloud runs, and a managed data service that builds, operates and maintains enterprise…
- [Import.io and Omnia Retail compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-omnia-retail): Omnia Retail sells pricing software for retailers and brands — agentic pricing, AI price monitoring and dynamic pricing — with data sources including…
- [Import.io and Oxylabs compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-oxylabs): Oxylabs offers proxy networks and a Web Scraper API with structured extraction, scheduled jobs and delivery to cloud storage. Import.io offers a…
- [Import.io and Parallel compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-parallel): Parallel sells web APIs for AI agents — Search, Extract, Task, Responses, Monitor and FindAll — plus an index and data connectors, on pay-as-you-go…
- [Import.io and ParseHub compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-parsehub): Import.io vs ParseHub: compare visual scraping, scheduling, APIs, managed services and data delivery to see which fits your team and workload.
- [Import.io and Price2Spy compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-price2spy): Price2Spy is a competitor price monitoring service with a matching service, site crawls, MAP and marketplace monitoring, repricing, automatic matching,…
- [Import.io and Prisync compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-prisync): Prisync is a competitor price tracking and dynamic pricing application with product matching, reports and API access on eligible paid plans.…
- [Import.io and PromptCloud compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-promptcloud): PromptCloud is a fully managed web scraping provider delivering pricing intelligence, multi-source aggregation, AI-ready pipelines, risk signals,…
- [Import.io and ScrapeHero compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-scrapehero): ScrapeHero is a US-based web scraping services company offering large-scale crawling, custom real-time APIs and RPA, plus ScrapeHero Cloud prebuilt…
- [Import.io and ScraperAPI compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-scraperapi): ScraperAPI offers a scraping API with proxies and anti-bot handling, an async service, structured data endpoints for popular domains, and DataPipeline…
- [Import.io and ScrapingBee compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-scrapingbee): ScrapingBee is a developer API for fetching web pages with rendering and proxies, with structured extraction through rules or AI parameters and a CLI…
- [Import.io and Tavily compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-tavily): Tavily describes itself as the web access layer for AI agents, with Search, Extract, Research, Crawl and Map endpoints and credit-based plans.…
- [Import.io and Thunderbit compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-thunderbit): Thunderbit is an AI web scraper that runs as a browser extension and extracts tables from pages in a click, including PDFs, images and documents, with…
- [Import.io and TinyFish compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-tinyfish): TinyFish sells web infrastructure for AI agents: Search and Fetch APIs (free on every plan), an Agent product for multi-step web automation, cloud…
- [Import.io and Web Scraper compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-web-scraper-io): Web Scraper offers a free browser extension for point-and-click scraping and Web Scraper Cloud, a hosted platform with proxies, CAPTCHA solving,…
- [Import.io and Zyte compared](https://www.import.io/comparisons/import-io-vs-zyte): Zyte, the company behind the open-source Scrapy framework, offers Zyte API for unblocking and automatic extraction, Scrapy Cloud for hosting and…

## Glossary definitions

- [Acceptance test](https://www.import.io/glossary#acceptance-test): A defined check a dataset must pass before it is accepted, such as row counts, fill rates and value ranges.
- [Agentic browsing](https://www.import.io/glossary#agentic-browsing): An AI agent operating a web browser to navigate, click and fill in forms to complete a task.
- [AI agent](https://www.import.io/glossary#ai-agent): Software that uses a language model to plan and take actions, such as calling tools, browsing or running code, towards a goal.
- [AI crawler](https://www.import.io/glossary#ai-crawler): A crawler operated to collect web content for AI training, search or agents, usually identified by its user agent.
- [AI extraction](https://www.import.io/glossary#ai-extraction): Using machine learning models, including large language models, to identify and extract fields from pages or documents.
- [AI QA](https://www.import.io/glossary#ai-qa): Automated checks that compare extracted records with the source page and the schema before delivery.
- [Alerting](https://www.import.io/glossary#alerting): Notifying people or systems when a defined condition occurs, such as a price change, stock-out or failed delivery.
- [Alternative data](https://www.import.io/glossary#alternative-data): Non-traditional data used by investors, such as web prices, job postings, app usage or satellite images.
- [Anomaly detection](https://www.import.io/glossary/anomaly-detection): Identifying values or patterns that deviate from what is expected, such as a sudden price drop or a collapse in row count.
- [Anti-bot system](https://www.import.io/glossary#anti-bot-system): Technology that websites use to detect and block automated traffic, using signals such as IP reputation, fingerprints, behaviour and challenges.
- [Aperture](https://www.import.io/glossary#aperture): Import.io's pricing intelligence and MAP monitoring application, with AI product matching and dated evidence.
- [API](https://www.import.io/glossary/api): A defined way for software to request data or actions from another system.
- [API key](https://www.import.io/glossary#api-key): A secret token that identifies and authorises a client calling an API.
- [ASIN](https://www.import.io/glossary#asin): Amazon's 10-character identifier for a product listing.
- [Assortment](https://www.import.io/glossary/assortment): The set of products a retailer offers in a category.
- [Assortment gap](https://www.import.io/glossary#assortment-gap): A product, or type of product, that competitors carry and you don't, or the reverse.
- [Audit trail](https://www.import.io/glossary#audit-trail): A chronological record of actions and changes that can be reviewed later.
- [Authenticated collection](https://www.import.io/glossary#authenticated-collection): Collecting data from pages that require signing in, using credentials the account holder has authorised for that use.
- [Automated extraction](https://www.import.io/glossary/automated-extraction): Extraction that identifies records and fields on a page without a person writing selectors, using page structure, heuristics or machine learning.
- [Availability](https://www.import.io/glossary/availability): Whether a product can be bought now, and sometimes where and how quickly.
- [Backfill](https://www.import.io/glossary#backfill): Collecting or reprocessing historical data to fill a gap or populate a new field over past periods.
- [Baseline price](https://www.import.io/glossary/baseline-price): The normal, non-promotional price of a product, used as the reference for measuring discounts.
- [Benchmark contamination](https://www.import.io/glossary#benchmark-contamination): When evaluation examples leak into a model's training data and inflate its scores.
- [Benchmarking](https://www.import.io/glossary/benchmarking): Comparing performance, prices or practices against competitors or a standard.
- [Boilerplate removal](https://www.import.io/glossary#boilerplate-removal): Stripping navigation, footers, adverts and other repeated elements so only a page's main content remains.
- [Bot detection](https://www.import.io/glossary#bot-detection): Classifying traffic as human or automated from network, browser and behavioural signals.
- [Brand protection](https://www.import.io/glossary#brand-protection): Protecting a brand's pricing, reputation and intellectual property online, including monitoring sellers, counterfeits and misuse.
- [Breadcrumbs](https://www.import.io/glossary/breadcrumbs-data-context): The navigation trail on a page that shows where it sits in a site's hierarchy, such as Home › Tools › Drills.
- [Browser fingerprinting](https://www.import.io/glossary#browser-fingerprinting): Identifying a client from the combination of its browser, device, fonts, screen and other attributes.
- [Buy Box](https://www.import.io/glossary/buy-box): The default offer on a marketplace product page, which most shoppers buy from.
- [Buy Box win rate](https://www.import.io/glossary#buy-box-win-rate): The share of time or observations in which a seller holds the Buy Box on a listing.
- [Cadence](https://www.import.io/glossary#cadence): How often data is collected and delivered.
- [Canonical URL](https://www.import.io/glossary#canonical-url): The preferred address for a page, often declared with a rel=canonical tag, when the same content is reachable at several URLs.
- [CAPTCHA](https://www.import.io/glossary#captcha): A challenge meant to be easy for people and hard for software, such as selecting images or ticking a box.
- [Catalogue coverage](https://www.import.io/glossary#catalogue-coverage): The share of a brand's or competitor's catalogue that a retailer lists.
- [Category management](https://www.import.io/glossary/category-management): Managing a product category as a business unit: range, pricing, promotion and space.
- [CCPA and CPRA](https://www.import.io/glossary#ccpa): California laws that give residents rights over personal information collected about them.
- [Chaining](https://www.import.io/glossary/chaining): Linking extractors so the output of one, such as product URLs from a listings page, becomes the input of the next, such as a details-page extractor.
- [Change detection](https://www.import.io/glossary#change-detection): Identifying what changed on a page or in a dataset since the last observation.
- [Chunking](https://www.import.io/glossary#chunking): Splitting documents into smaller passages for embedding and retrieval.
- [Clearance](https://www.import.io/glossary#clearance): Pricing intended to sell remaining stock, usually of discontinued or seasonal items.
- [Competitive intelligence](https://www.import.io/glossary/competitive-intelligence): Gathering and analysing information about competitors' products, prices, moves and positioning.
- [Completeness](https://www.import.io/glossary#completeness): How much of the expected data is present: records against the known universe, and fields within each record.
- [Compliance filters](https://www.import.io/glossary/compliance-filters): Rules applied during collection or processing to exclude disallowed sources, fields or personal data.
- [Concurrency](https://www.import.io/glossary#concurrency): The number of requests a system makes at the same time.
- [Consistency](https://www.import.io/glossary#consistency): Whether the same thing is represented the same way across records, sources and time.
- [Content compliance](https://www.import.io/glossary#content-compliance): Whether a product page's content matches the brand's approved titles, images, descriptions and specifications.
- [Content hash](https://www.import.io/glossary#content-hash): A fixed-length fingerprint computed from content, used to detect changes and duplicates.
- [Cookies](https://www.import.io/glossary#cookies): Small pieces of data a site stores in the client to keep sessions, preferences and tracking state.
- [Copyright](https://www.import.io/glossary#copyright): Legal protection for original creative works, such as text, images and code.
- [Counterfeit](https://www.import.io/glossary#counterfeit): A fake product sold as genuine.
- [Coverage](https://www.import.io/glossary#coverage): The share of target sources, pages or entities that a dataset actually contains.
- [Crawl](https://www.import.io/glossary/crawl): A run of a web crawler across a site or set of sites, discovering and fetching pages according to rules on scope, depth and rate.
- [Crawl budget](https://www.import.io/glossary#crawl-budget): The number of requests a crawl may make in a period, set by cost, politeness or a site's tolerance.
- [Crawl depth](https://www.import.io/glossary#crawl-depth): How many link hops away from the seed a crawler will follow.
- [Crawl politeness](https://www.import.io/glossary#crawl-politeness): Practices that limit a crawler's load on sites, such as rate limits, off-peak scheduling and honouring robots.txt.
- [Crawl run](https://www.import.io/glossary/crawl-run): In Import.io, one execution of an extractor or crawl over its inputs, with its own results, counts and status.
- [CSS selector](https://www.import.io/glossary/css-selector): A pattern that identifies elements in an HTML document by tag, class, id or attribute, commonly used to target the fields a scraper extracts.
- [CSV](https://www.import.io/glossary#csv): A plain-text table format with one record per line and fields separated by commas.
- [Currency normalisation](https://www.import.io/glossary#currency-normalisation): Converting prices into a common currency and format, recording the exchange rate and date used.
- [Dashboard](https://www.import.io/glossary#dashboard): A visual display of key metrics, updated from underlying data.
- [Data aggregation](https://www.import.io/glossary#data-aggregation): Combining data from many sources into a unified dataset or summary.
- [Database right](https://www.import.io/glossary#database-right): In the EU and UK, protection for databases that required substantial investment, separate from copyright.
- [Datacenter proxy](https://www.import.io/glossary#datacenter-proxy): A proxy that uses IP addresses belonging to cloud or hosting providers.
- [Data drift](https://www.import.io/glossary#data-drift): A change in the statistical properties of data over time, such as a shift in price or category distributions.
- [Data enrichment](https://www.import.io/glossary#data-enrichment): Adding attributes to existing records from other sources, such as appending web data to a product catalogue.
- [Data extraction](https://www.import.io/glossary/data-extraction): The step that turns raw web content into structured records with defined fields and types, ready to load, query or analyse.
- [Data feed](https://www.import.io/glossary/data-feed): A recurring delivery of data from a source to a destination on a schedule.
- [Data governance](https://www.import.io/glossary/data-governance): The policies, roles and controls that decide how data is collected, stored, used and retired.
- [Data labelling](https://www.import.io/glossary#data-labelling): Adding tags or answers to data so it can train or evaluate models.
- [Data lake](https://www.import.io/glossary#data-lake): Storage that holds raw and processed data in open file formats, often on object storage.
- [Data lineage](https://www.import.io/glossary/lineage): The record of where data came from and every step that transformed it on the way.
- [Data minimisation](https://www.import.io/glossary#data-minimisation): Collecting and keeping only the personal data needed for a defined purpose.
- [Data observability](https://www.import.io/glossary#observability): Visibility into the health of data pipelines through metrics, logs, lineage and quality checks.
- [Data pipeline](https://www.import.io/glossary/data-pipeline): The sequence of steps that moves data from sources, through processing, to destinations.
- [Data processing agreement (DPA)](https://www.import.io/glossary#data-processing-agreement): A contract governing how a processor handles personal data on behalf of a controller.
- [Data quality](https://www.import.io/glossary/data-quality): How well data fits its purpose, usually measured as accuracy, completeness, freshness, consistency and uniqueness.
- [Data report](https://www.import.io/glossary/data-report): A structured summary of data prepared for a specific audience or decision.
- [Data residency](https://www.import.io/glossary#data-residency): Requirements on where data is stored and processed geographically.
- [Data retention](https://www.import.io/glossary#data-retention): Rules on how long data is kept and when it is deleted.
- [Data warehouse](https://www.import.io/glossary#data-warehouse): A database built for analytics across large volumes of structured data, such as Snowflake, BigQuery or Redshift.
- [Deduplication](https://www.import.io/glossary#deduplication): Removing repeated records, whether exact copies or near-duplicates that refer to the same entity or document.
- [Delivery manifest](https://www.import.io/glossary#manifest): A file that accompanies a data delivery and lists its contents, counts, schema version, checks and provenance.
- [Details page](https://www.import.io/glossary/details-page): A page dedicated to a single item, such as a product, property or job, carrying its full set of attributes.
- [Digital shelf](https://www.import.io/glossary/digital-shelf): Everywhere a product appears online where shoppers find, compare and buy it: retailer sites, marketplaces and search.
- [Digital shelf analytics](https://www.import.io/glossary#digital-shelf-analytics): Measuring and improving a product's online presence: availability, price, content, search rank, reviews and share of shelf.
- [Document parsing](https://www.import.io/glossary#document-parsing): Extracting text, tables and fields from documents such as PDFs, filings and spreadsheets.
- [DOM (Document Object Model)](https://www.import.io/glossary/dom-document-object-model): The tree of elements a browser builds from HTML, which scripts modify and selectors query.
- [Dynamic pricing](https://www.import.io/glossary#dynamic-pricing): Changing prices frequently in response to demand, competition, stock levels or time.
- [EAN](https://www.import.io/glossary#ean): A 13-digit GTIN used internationally.
- [Embeddings](https://www.import.io/glossary#embeddings): Numeric vectors that represent the meaning of text, images or other data, so similar items sit close together.
- [Entity resolution](https://www.import.io/glossary#entity-resolution): Determining which records across sources refer to the same real-world entity, such as a product, company or property.
- [ETL (extract, transform, load)](https://www.import.io/glossary/etl-extract-transform-load): Extracting data from sources, transforming it and loading it into a destination. ELT loads first and transforms inside the warehouse.
- [Evaluation set](https://www.import.io/glossary#evaluation-set): A held-out set of examples with known answers, used to measure a model's performance.
- [Exact match](https://www.import.io/glossary#exact-match): Two listings of the identical product: same brand, model, size and pack.
- [External data](https://www.import.io/glossary/external-data): Data from outside an organisation, such as market, competitor, public-record or web data.
- [Extractor](https://www.import.io/glossary/extractor): In Import.io, a configured set of rules that turns a website's pages into structured records, built by point-and-click, AI assistance or engineers.
- [Feed delivery](https://www.import.io/glossary/feed-delivery): Getting data from the extraction system to where it is used: files, warehouse tables, APIs or webhooks.
- [Field accuracy](https://www.import.io/glossary#field-accuracy): The share of extracted values that match the source when checked, typically against a human-labelled sample.
- [Fill rate](https://www.import.io/glossary#fill-rate): The share of records in which a field has a value.
- [Fine-tuning](https://www.import.io/glossary#fine-tuning): Further training of a pretrained model on a smaller, targeted dataset to specialise it.
- [First-party (1P) retail](https://www.import.io/glossary#first-party-retail): An arrangement in which a marketplace buys stock from a brand and sells it directly.
- [First-party data](https://www.import.io/glossary#first-party-data): Data a company collects directly from its own customers and operations.
- [Freshness](https://www.import.io/glossary#freshness): How recent data is, measured as the time between a source changing and the data reflecting it.
- [Fulfilment](https://www.import.io/glossary#fulfilment): How an order is stored, packed and shipped, for example by the seller or by the marketplace.
- [Full crawl](https://www.import.io/glossary#full-crawl): A crawl that refetches every page in scope, whether or not it changed.
- [Fully managed service](https://www.import.io/glossary/fully-managed-service): An arrangement in which the provider builds, runs, quality-checks and maintains data collection and delivers the data under an agreement.
- [GDPR](https://www.import.io/glossary#gdpr): The EU regulation governing the processing of personal data about people in the EU.
- [Geo-targeting](https://www.import.io/glossary#geo-targeting): Sending requests from a specific country, region or city so a site returns its local content, prices and availability.
- [Governance](https://www.import.io/glossary/governance): The framework of decisions, accountability and controls around a data program.
- [GraphQL](https://www.import.io/glossary#graphql): A query language for APIs that lets clients request exactly the fields they need.
- [Grey market](https://www.import.io/glossary#grey-market): Genuine products sold through channels the brand didn't authorise, often imported from other markets.
- [Grounding](https://www.import.io/glossary#grounding): Tying a model's output to specific source material so its claims can be checked.
- [Ground truth](https://www.import.io/glossary#ground-truth): Data verified by people against the source, used to measure extraction accuracy.
- [GTIN](https://www.import.io/glossary#gtin): A standard product identifier issued under the GS1 system, including UPC (12 digits) and EAN (13 digits).
- [Hallucination](https://www.import.io/glossary#hallucination): A model producing fluent output that is false or unsupported by its inputs.
- [Headless browser](https://www.import.io/glossary/headless-browser): A real web browser run without a visible window and controlled by code to load pages, execute JavaScript and interact like a user.
- [Hidden API](https://www.import.io/glossary#hidden-api): A background endpoint that a website's own front end calls to fetch data, often returning JSON.
- [Historical data](https://www.import.io/glossary#historical-data): Past observations kept over time, such as daily prices over several years.
- [Honeypot](https://www.import.io/glossary#honeypot): A hidden link or form field placed to catch automated clients that a person would never interact with.
- [HTML](https://www.import.io/glossary/html): The markup language that structures web pages into elements such as headings, tables, links and images.
- [HTTP headers](https://www.import.io/glossary#http-headers): Metadata sent with web requests and responses, such as user agent, cookies, language and caching directives.
- [HTTP status codes](https://www.import.io/glossary#http-status-codes): Three-digit codes a server returns to report the result of a request, such as 200 OK, 403 Forbidden, 404 Not Found or 429 Too Many Requests.
- [Human in the loop](https://www.import.io/glossary#human-in-the-loop): A process in which people review or correct automated output at defined points.
- [Image URL](https://www.import.io/glossary#image-url): The web address of an image file, such as a product photo.
- [Incremental crawl](https://www.import.io/glossary#incremental-crawl): A crawl that fetches only pages that are new or have changed since the last run.
- [Infinite scroll](https://www.import.io/glossary#infinite-scroll): A pattern where more results load automatically as the user scrolls, instead of through page links.
- [Ingestion](https://www.import.io/glossary/ingestion): Bringing data into a storage or processing system from outside sources.
- [Insights](https://www.import.io/glossary/insights): Conclusions drawn from data that change a decision.
- [In-stock rate](https://www.import.io/glossary#in-stock-rate): The share of tracked products that are available across retailers, stores or time.
- [IP block](https://www.import.io/glossary#ip-block): A site refusing requests from an IP address or range it has flagged.
- [IP rotation](https://www.import.io/glossary#ip-rotation): Changing the IP address used for requests across a pool, per request or per session.
- [ISP proxy](https://www.import.io/glossary#isp-proxy): A proxy on IP addresses registered to internet service providers but hosted in data centres.
- [JavaScript challenge](https://www.import.io/glossary#javascript-challenge): A script a site serves to check that the client is a real browser before showing content.
- [JavaScript rendering](https://www.import.io/glossary#javascript-rendering): Executing a page's scripts, usually in a headless browser, so content loaded after the initial HTML becomes available to extract.
- [JSON](https://www.import.io/glossary/json-javascript-object-notation): A lightweight text format for structured data built from key-value pairs and arrays.
- [JSON-LD](https://www.import.io/glossary#json-ld): A JSON-based format for embedding linked data, most often Schema.org markup, in a web page.
- [JSON Lines](https://www.import.io/glossary#jsonl): A format with one JSON object per line, easy to stream, split and append.
- [Key value item (KVI)](https://www.import.io/glossary#key-value-item): A product whose price shoppers remember and use to judge a store's overall price level.
- [Keyword ranking](https://www.import.io/glossary/keyword-ranking): The position at which a product appears for a given search term on a retailer or marketplace.
- [KPI](https://www.import.io/glossary#kpi): A measure chosen to track progress against a goal.
- [Landed price](https://www.import.io/glossary#landed-price): The full price to the buyer, including shipping, fees and taxes.
- [Language identification](https://www.import.io/glossary#language-identification): Detecting which language a document or passage is written in.
- [Lawful basis](https://www.import.io/glossary#lawful-basis): Under the GDPR, the legal ground for processing personal data, such as consent or legitimate interests.
- [Lazy loading](https://www.import.io/glossary#lazy-loading): Deferring content such as images, prices or reviews until it is about to be viewed.
- [Licence signal](https://www.import.io/glossary#licence-signal): Information on a page that indicates its licence or usage terms, such as a Creative Commons tag.
- [Link extraction](https://www.import.io/glossary#link-extraction): Collecting URLs from a page to discover further pages to crawl or extract.
- [Listings page](https://www.import.io/glossary/listings-page): A page that shows many items at once, such as a category, search result or feed, each linking to a details page.
- [List price](https://www.import.io/glossary#list-price): The price a manufacturer suggests or a retailer shows as the reference, before discounts.
- [llms.txt](https://www.import.io/glossary#llms-txt): A proposed file that sites publish to give language models a curated guide to their content.
- [Localisation](https://www.import.io/glossary#localisation): The adaptation of a site's content, language, currency and assortment to a market.
- [Loyalty price](https://www.import.io/glossary#loyalty-price): A price available only to members of a retailer's loyalty scheme.
- [MAP (minimum advertised price)](https://www.import.io/glossary/map-minimum-advertised-price): A manufacturer policy setting the lowest price at which resellers may advertise a product, common in the US.
- [MAP policy](https://www.import.io/glossary#map-policy): A manufacturer's written rules on minimum advertised prices, including scope, exceptions and enforcement steps.
- [MAP violation](https://www.import.io/glossary/map-violation): An advertised price below the minimum set in a manufacturer's MAP policy.
- [Markdown](https://www.import.io/glossary#markdown): A permanent or long-term price reduction, often made to clear stock.
- [Market intelligence](https://www.import.io/glossary/market-intelligence): Information about a market — its size, players, prices and trends — gathered to inform strategy.
- [Marketplace](https://www.import.io/glossary#marketplace): A platform where many third-party sellers list products, such as Amazon, eBay or Walmart Marketplace.
- [Match confidence score](https://www.import.io/glossary/match-confidence-score): A score expressing how likely it is that two listings are the same product.
- [MCP (Model Context Protocol)](https://www.import.io/glossary#mcp): An open protocol that lets AI applications connect to external tools and data sources through standard servers.
- [Mobile proxy](https://www.import.io/glossary#mobile-proxy): A proxy that routes traffic through mobile carrier networks.
- [Monitoring](https://www.import.io/glossary/monitoring): Continuous checking of sources, runs and outputs for failures, anomalies and changes.
- [MPN](https://www.import.io/glossary#mpn): The identifier a manufacturer assigns to a product model.
- [MSRP](https://www.import.io/glossary#msrp): The retail price a manufacturer recommends for a product, a term used mainly in the US.
- [Multibuy](https://www.import.io/glossary#multibuy): A promotion that rewards buying more than one unit, such as buy one get one free or three for two.
- [National brand](https://www.import.io/glossary#national-brand): A manufacturer's brand sold through many retailers.
- [Near-duplicate detection](https://www.import.io/glossary#near-duplicate-detection): Finding documents or records that are almost identical, using techniques such as shingling and locality-sensitive hashing.
- [Normalisation](https://www.import.io/glossary/normalization): Converting values to a consistent form: units, currencies, formats, names and categories.
- [Object storage](https://www.import.io/glossary#object-storage): Cloud storage that organises files as objects in buckets, such as Amazon S3.
- [OCR](https://www.import.io/glossary#ocr): Converting text in images or scanned documents into machine-readable characters.
- [Offer price](https://www.import.io/glossary/offer-price): The price at which a product is currently offered to buyers, after any visible discounts.
- [Omnichannel](https://www.import.io/glossary#omnichannel): Selling across online and physical channels as one connected experience.
- [Organic rank](https://www.import.io/glossary#organic-rank): A product's position in results, excluding paid placements.
- [Out of stock](https://www.import.io/glossary/out-of-stock): A product that is listed but cannot be bought because no inventory is available.
- [Pagination](https://www.import.io/glossary#pagination): Splitting a list of results across multiple pages, navigated by page numbers, next links, offsets or cursors.
- [Parquet](https://www.import.io/glossary#parquet): A columnar file format that compresses well and stores data types, widely used in data lakes and warehouses.
- [Personal data (PII)](https://www.import.io/glossary#personal-data): Information relating to an identifiable person, such as names, contact details or online identifiers.
- [PII redaction](https://www.import.io/glossary#pii-redaction): Detecting and removing personal information such as names, email addresses and phone numbers from data.
- [Point-and-click extraction](https://www.import.io/glossary#point-and-click-extraction): Building an extractor by clicking on the data you want in a visual interface instead of writing code.
- [Point-in-time data](https://www.import.io/glossary#point-in-time-data): Data recorded as it was known at each moment, without later revisions, so backtests avoid look-ahead bias.
- [Pretraining](https://www.import.io/glossary#pretraining): The first, broad phase of training a model on large general datasets.
- [Price dispersion](https://www.import.io/glossary/price-dispersion): The spread of prices for the same product across sellers or channels at one moment.
- [Price elasticity](https://www.import.io/glossary#price-elasticity): How much demand for a product changes when its price changes.
- [Price index](https://www.import.io/glossary/price-index): A single number comparing your prices with a competitor's or the market's across a basket of matched products, often with 100 as parity.
- [Price intelligence](https://www.import.io/glossary/price-intelligence): Collecting and analysing competitors' prices, promotions and availability to inform pricing decisions.
- [Price monitoring](https://www.import.io/glossary#price-monitoring): Regularly capturing prices for defined products across competitors and channels.
- [Price optimisation](https://www.import.io/glossary#price-optimisation): Setting prices using models of demand, elasticity, cost and competition to meet goals such as margin or volume.
- [Price parity](https://www.import.io/glossary#price-parity): Keeping the same price for a product across channels, regions or sellers.
- [Price perception](https://www.import.io/glossary#price-perception): How expensive customers believe a retailer is, which can differ from its actual average prices.
- [Price position](https://www.import.io/glossary#price-position): Where a product's price sits relative to competitors: cheapest, at parity, or at a premium by some margin.
- [Private label](https://www.import.io/glossary#private-label): Products sold under a retailer's own brand.
- [Product content](https://www.import.io/glossary#product-content): The titles, descriptions, images, specifications and other material on a product page.
- [Product data](https://www.import.io/glossary/product-data): Information that describes products: identifiers, titles, attributes, images, prices, availability and reviews.
- [Product matching](https://www.import.io/glossary/product-matching): Identifying the same product across retailers or sellers, using identifiers, attributes, text and images.
- [Product Q&A](https://www.import.io/glossary#product-q-and-a): Shopper questions and seller or community answers shown on product pages.
- [Product taxonomy](https://www.import.io/glossary#product-taxonomy): A hierarchy that classifies products into categories and subcategories.
- [Promotion](https://www.import.io/glossary/promotion): A temporary offer that changes the price or value of a product, such as a discount, multibuy, coupon or loyalty price.
- [Provenance](https://www.import.io/glossary#provenance): Evidence of a record's origin: source URL, capture time, collection method and version.
- [Proxy](https://www.import.io/glossary#proxy): An intermediary server that forwards requests, so the target sees the proxy's IP address instead of the client's.
- [Proxy pool](https://www.import.io/glossary#proxy-pool): The set of IP addresses available to a collection system for routing requests.
- [Publicly available data](https://www.import.io/glossary#publicly-available-data): Information that can be accessed on the web without logging in or paying.
- [Quality filtering](https://www.import.io/glossary#quality-filtering): Removing low-quality documents from a corpus, such as spam, boilerplate or machine-generated text.
- [Quality score](https://www.import.io/glossary/quality-score): A composite measure summarising a record's or dataset's quality across checks such as validity, completeness and consistency.
- [Query](https://www.import.io/glossary/query): In Import.io, one successful request that returns data. Self-service plans are billed on successful queries.
- [RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)](https://www.import.io/glossary#rag): A pattern in which a model retrieves relevant documents at query time and uses them to ground its answer.
- [Ranking](https://www.import.io/glossary/ranking): The order in which products appear in search results, categories or bestseller lists.
- [Rate limit](https://www.import.io/glossary#rate-limit): A cap on how many requests a client may make in a period, enforced by the site or chosen by the collector.
- [Rate parity](https://www.import.io/glossary#rate-parity): In travel, offering the same room rate or fare across booking channels.
- [Recrawl frequency](https://www.import.io/glossary#recrawl-frequency): How often a source is fetched again, such as hourly, daily or weekly.
- [Repricing](https://www.import.io/glossary#repricing): Automatically changing a price according to rules or models, often in reaction to competitor prices.
- [Resale price maintenance](https://www.import.io/glossary#resale-price-maintenance): Arrangements that fix or impose minimum resale prices on resellers, which many jurisdictions restrict.
- [Residential proxy](https://www.import.io/glossary#residential-proxy): A proxy that routes traffic through IP addresses assigned to home internet connections.
- [REST API](https://www.import.io/glossary#rest-api): An API that exposes resources through standard HTTP methods such as GET and POST, usually returning JSON.
- [Retail media](https://www.import.io/glossary#retail-media): Advertising sold by retailers and marketplaces on their own sites and apps.
- [Retries and backoff](https://www.import.io/glossary#retries-and-backoff): Repeating failed requests after increasing delays, to recover from transient errors without overloading the target.
- [Retrieval freshness](https://www.import.io/glossary#retrieval-freshness): How current the documents in a retrieval index are relative to the live web.
- [Reviews and ratings](https://www.import.io/glossary/reviews-and-ratings): Customer feedback on products: star ratings, written reviews, review counts and helpfulness votes.
- [Review velocity](https://www.import.io/glossary#review-velocity): The rate at which new reviews arrive for a product.
- [robots.txt](https://www.import.io/glossary#robots-txt): A file at the root of a site that tells automated agents which paths they may or may not crawl.
- [RRP](https://www.import.io/glossary#rrp): The retail price a supplier recommends, a term common in the UK and EU.
- [RRP monitoring](https://www.import.io/glossary#rrp-monitoring): Tracking how resellers' prices compare with a recommended retail price.
- [Schema](https://www.import.io/glossary/schema): The definition of a dataset's fields, types, allowed values and rules.
- [Schema contract](https://www.import.io/glossary#schema-contract): A written agreement on a dataset's fields, types, rules and acceptance tests between the producer and the consumer.
- [Schema drift](https://www.import.io/glossary#schema-drift): Unplanned changes to a dataset's structure over time, such as renamed, added or retyped fields.
- [Schema.org markup](https://www.import.io/glossary#schema-org-markup): A shared vocabulary that sites embed in pages, often as JSON-LD, to describe products, prices, reviews and organisations for search engines.
- [SDK](https://www.import.io/glossary#sdk): A library that wraps an API for a particular programming language, handling authentication, retries and data types.
- [Seed URL](https://www.import.io/glossary#seed-url): A starting address from which a crawl begins discovering pages.
- [Selector drift](https://www.import.io/glossary#selector-drift): The mismatch that develops between an extractor's selectors and a site's markup when the site changes.
- [Self-healing extractor](https://www.import.io/glossary#self-healing-extractor): An extractor that detects when a site change breaks it and adapts, automatically or with review, to restore correct output.
- [Self-service plan](https://www.import.io/glossary/self-service-plan): An Import.io subscription in which your team builds and runs extractors on the platform, with published pricing and query allowances.
- [Seller identification](https://www.import.io/glossary#seller-identification): Resolving marketplace seller names and IDs to the businesses behind them.
- [Semi-structured data](https://www.import.io/glossary#semi-structured-data): Data with some organisation but no fixed schema, such as HTML, XML or JSON whose fields vary between records.
- [Sentiment analysis](https://www.import.io/glossary#sentiment-analysis): Classifying text such as reviews or articles as positive, negative or neutral, often by topic.
- [Session](https://www.import.io/glossary#session): A sequence of requests that a site treats as one visit, tied together by cookies or tokens.
- [SFTP](https://www.import.io/glossary#sftp): A protocol for transferring files over an encrypted connection.
- [Share of search](https://www.import.io/glossary#share-of-search): A brand's share of search results or search volume for defined keywords, on a retailer, marketplace or search engine.
- [Share of shelf](https://www.import.io/glossary/share-of-shelf): The share of product listings or top positions a brand holds in a defined set of search results or category pages.
- [Shrinkflation](https://www.import.io/glossary#shrinkflation): Reducing a product's size or quantity while keeping its price the same or similar.
- [Similar match](https://www.import.io/glossary#similar-match): A listing that is not identical but is a close substitute, such as a competing private-label item.
- [Single-page application (SPA)](https://www.import.io/glossary#single-page-application): A website that loads one page and then updates its content with JavaScript instead of loading new pages from the server.
- [SKU](https://www.import.io/glossary#sku): A retailer's or seller's own identifier for a product or variant.
- [SLA](https://www.import.io/glossary#sla): A contract term defining measurable commitments, such as coverage, freshness, accuracy and response time, with remedies if they are missed.
- [Snapshot](https://www.import.io/glossary#snapshot): A stored copy of a page or dataset exactly as it was at a specific moment.
- [Sponsored listing](https://www.import.io/glossary#sponsored-listing): A paid placement in a retailer's or marketplace's search results.
- [Stock level](https://www.import.io/glossary/stock-level): The quantity of a product available, where a site reveals it through counts or thresholds.
- [Store-level pricing](https://www.import.io/glossary#store-level-pricing): Prices that vary by store, postcode or region for the same product at the same retailer.
- [Strike-through price](https://www.import.io/glossary#strike-through-price): A higher reference price shown crossed out next to the current price.
- [Structured data](https://www.import.io/glossary#structured-data): Information organised into defined fields and types, such as rows in a table or keys in a JSON object.
- [Synthetic data](https://www.import.io/glossary#synthetic-data): Artificially generated data that mimics the properties of real data.
- [Table extraction](https://www.import.io/glossary#table-extraction): Turning HTML or document tables into rows and columns with the correct headers and data types.
- [Terms of service](https://www.import.io/glossary#terms-of-service): The conditions a website sets for its use.
- [Third-party data](https://www.import.io/glossary#third-party-data): Data collected by one organisation and sold or shared to others.
- [Third-party seller (3P)](https://www.import.io/glossary#third-party-seller): An independent business selling on a marketplace, as opposed to the marketplace selling directly.
- [Time series](https://www.import.io/glossary#time-series): Observations of the same measure recorded at successive points in time.
- [TLS fingerprinting](https://www.import.io/glossary#tls-fingerprinting): Identifying clients by how they negotiate encrypted connections, such as cipher order and extensions.
- [Tokens](https://www.import.io/glossary#tokens): The units of text a language model processes, typically whole words or word pieces.
- [Tool calling](https://www.import.io/glossary#tool-calling): A model's ability to request that an external function or API be run, and to use the result.
- [Training (an extractor)](https://www.import.io/glossary/training): Teaching an extractor which data to capture by selecting examples on a page, so it can find the same fields on similar pages.
- [Training corpus](https://www.import.io/glossary#training-corpus): A large, curated collection of documents assembled to train or fine-tune a model.
- [Training data](https://www.import.io/glossary#training-data): The examples a machine learning model learns from.
- [Transformation](https://www.import.io/glossary/transformation): Changing data after extraction — cleaning, typing, splitting, joining and deriving fields — to fit the target schema.
- [Unauthorised seller](https://www.import.io/glossary#unauthorised-seller): A seller offering a brand's products without being an approved reseller.
- [Unblocker](https://www.import.io/glossary#unblocker): A service that handles proxies, fingerprints, challenges and retries to return a page from a protected site.
- [Unit price](https://www.import.io/glossary#unit-price): The price per standard measure, such as per kilogram or per 100 ml.
- [Unstructured data](https://www.import.io/glossary#unstructured-data): Content without a predefined data model, such as free text, images, audio or PDFs.
- [UPC](https://www.import.io/glossary#upc): A 12-digit GTIN used mainly in North America.
- [Uptime](https://www.import.io/glossary#uptime): The share of time a service is operational.
- [URL](https://www.import.io/glossary/url): The address of a resource on the web, made up of a scheme, host, path and optional query parameters.
- [URL frontier](https://www.import.io/glossary#url-frontier): The queue of discovered URLs a crawler has yet to fetch, with rules for priority and deduplication.
- [URL normalisation](https://www.import.io/glossary#url-normalization): Rewriting URLs to a standard form — ordering parameters, removing tracking codes, fixing case — so duplicates are recognised.
- [User agent](https://www.import.io/glossary/user-agent): The request header in which a client identifies its software, such as a browser name and version.
- [User behaviour data](https://www.import.io/glossary#user-behavior-data): Data describing how people interact with sites and apps, such as clicks, searches and sessions.
- [Variant](https://www.import.io/glossary/variant): A version of a product that differs by an attribute such as size, colour or pack.
- [Vector database](https://www.import.io/glossary#vector-database): A database built to store embeddings and find nearest neighbours quickly.
- [Visibility](https://www.import.io/glossary/visibility): How easily shoppers come across a product online, combining rank, placement, availability and content.
- [Web application firewall (WAF)](https://www.import.io/glossary#web-application-firewall): A security layer in front of a site that filters requests by rules and threat signals.
- [Web archive](https://www.import.io/glossary#web-archive): A collection of web pages stored over time, such as the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
- [Web crawler](https://www.import.io/glossary/web-crawler): A program that discovers pages by following links from a set of starting URLs and fetching each page it finds.
- [Webhook](https://www.import.io/glossary#webhook): An HTTP callback that notifies another system when an event happens, such as a delivery completing.
- [Web Scraper MCP](https://www.import.io/glossary#web-scraper-mcp): Import.io's MCP server, which gives AI agents web data extraction as tools in Claude, Cursor and other MCP clients.
- [Web scraping](https://www.import.io/glossary/scraping): Automated collection of information from websites by software that requests pages and pulls out the content it needs.
- [Web scraping service](https://www.import.io/glossary/web-scraping-service): Buying web data as a service: the provider owns extraction and maintenance and delivers data on a schedule.
- [Web search API](https://www.import.io/glossary#web-search-api): An API that returns search results, and often page contents, programmatically, commonly used by AI applications.
- [XML](https://www.import.io/glossary/xml): A markup format for structured documents and data exchange, used for feeds, sitemaps and many older APIs.
- [XML sitemap](https://www.import.io/glossary#xml-sitemap): A file listing a site's URLs, often with last-modified dates, published to help search engines discover pages.
- [XPath](https://www.import.io/glossary#xpath): A query language for selecting nodes in an HTML or XML document by path, position and conditions.
- [Yield](https://www.import.io/glossary/yield): The share of fetched pages or requests that produce valid records.
- [Zero-party data](https://www.import.io/glossary/zero-party-data): Data a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a brand, such as preferences or intentions.