A bot is a computer program that makes use of web pages just like a human user does. This article shows how to use a bot to access Amazon.com and obtain title and price information from their database. Simply provide the bot with an ISBN number, and the bot will return the title for that item, as well as the price.

You do not need to stop with Amazon.com. This article presents several reusable functions that could be used to construct bots for sites other than Amazon.com.

Amazon.com contains a database with a large number of books, and other items. Amazon.com allows websites to link to these items. If a link on your website causes Amazon.com to make a sale, Amazon.com will pay you a commission. Many websites derive their entire income from such commissions.

Because of this it may be useful to access the Amazon.com and obtain current price information, so that your website stays up to date. Figure 1 shows a typical Amazon.com product item.

Figure 1: A Typical Amazon.com Item Page