Since being founded in 1999, Velocityscape has been focused solely on products and solutions that move data between the web and databases or spreadsheets. Our core product, Web Scraper Plus+ automates the extraction of information from web pages into a database. Consulting for data extractions projects is our core service offering and this requires that we maintain a very high proficiency in data manipulation and data cleansing.

Online advertising has always been a large part of how we market our products and services to our clients. Since we placed our first online advertisement, we have been looking for ways to achieve better performance from them. There are a plethora of services, books, websites, and experts that have good advice, but we could not find anyone with a good answer for a few pertinent questions. Which Adwords should I buy? Which Adwords are my competitors buying? Who else is advertising on my Adwords? We set out to find these answers in April of 2005 and Googspy was developed in 4 days time.

Googspy provided some very insightful data. Information on companies included which adwords they were using, how they ranked in organic searches, and who some of their competitors were. Information on Adwords included which companies were paying for the term, which companies organically ranked in the term, and other words companies used in addition to the term. Googspy was launched as an experiment and over the last 18 months has provided us with valuable information also. We know there is a need for better online competitive intelligence. From this knowledge, SpyFu.com was created.

SpyFu.com is a true compilation and showcase of our products and knowledge to date. We are using Web Scraper Plus+ to gather data from sources around the web and to monitor specific data points. This information comes from search engines, Alexa data, DMOZ categories, and variety of other sources. We are using our data manipulation and cleansing skills to parse and structure the data. We are using Bayesian logic to sort, compare, and compile statistics and data. And lastly, we are using the feedback from Googspy to provide the data and service levels that our customers have asked for.

SpyFu.com has nearly 20 times more data than Googspy, and the coolest statistics imaginable. This time we believe did it right. We can’t wait to see what you think of SpyFu.com.