Building an Aggregator Website: A Step-by-Step Guide

Aggregator websites are all around the web. From news aggregators to travel fare and accommodation collectors, many people use these websites without even noticing. If you’ve ever booked tickets through something like Skyscanner – you’ve used an aggregator website.

They all slightly differ in their application, use cases, and monetization models, but all of them are extremely useful and often are vital to our day-to-day operations online. If you create a valuable enough aggregator, it could be worth tens of millions – not that it’s easy to do so, though.

What Is an Aggregator Website?

An aggregator website collects, parses, and displays various types of information or data from many different sources and presents it in one single place. Data consolidation is the key aspect of an aggregator website, with significant leeway in other parts of the building process.

Some of the most popular examples are news aggregators (such as Ground News), travel fare aggregators (such as Skyscanner), and even search engines , as they collect and index websites.

An aggregator website will usually serve as a central repository for content with several additional features. These usually include links to data sources (especially for news aggregators), filters, notifications, or newsletters.

While they rely on numerous technologies, the underlying core part is web scraping and crawling . An aggregator website has to collect information from multiple sources, usually in real-time, so without web scraping, aggregating for online data would be nearly impossible to do.

Types of Aggregators and Their Purpose

Aggregator websites can be broadly classified into several different categories. These, however, are purely analytical – you can often find various mixes of aggregator sites with different feature sets and content:

• Content aggregator

These will usually collect (user-generated) content from across the web and put it in one place. A content aggregator website usually earns money through affiliate deals, ad placements, or subscriptions. Additionally, a news aggregator (such as Google News) would fall under this category.

• E-commerce aggregators

These aggregator sites scrape data from e-commerce platforms and websites, match products and availability, and compare prices. ShopZilla and PriceGrabber are two popular e-commerce aggregators.

• Listing aggregators

Similarly to e-commerce aggregator sites, these websites collect various listings, such as job offers, real estate postings, travel deals, etc. The aforementioned Skyscanner, Zillow, and Indeed are great examples of such aggregator sites.

While the last two aggregator sites may seem quite similar, the usage slightly differs. Listing aggregators usually serve as part of the discovery and selection process, but only sometimes as a payment gateway. E-commerce aggregators usually attract users that want to find the best deal and purchase it outright.

Why Aggregator Websites Are Beneficial

Aggregator sites are beloved by numerous internet users, especially if they’re not intrusive. As mentioned in the introduction, many people use them frequently without even realizing they’re using an aggregator website.

Saving time has long since been an important part of daily life, and that’s what an aggregator website does best. Since an aggregator website collects data from numerous sources and platforms, they save the time a user would spend looking for the same thing.

Additionally, they usually present data in an easy-to-digest manner, particularly e-commerce aggregators. Instead of having to note down prices and compare them, you usually get a sorted list that’s easy to understand and parse.

A news aggregator can also be valuable by providing several different viewpoints from different news sources. That reduces the likelihood of bias in reporting, so for people who want to get politically neutral news, aggregator sites like these are an amazing option.

Of course, for people who like to get their news from social media platforms and other sources, aggregators are usually not as important.

On the other hand, since an aggregator website almost always lists its sources (one way or another), businesses get free visibility and marketing through it. These are most visible on an e-commerce aggregator website where you get a handy list of sellers for a particular product – all of the listed sites get free publicity.

How Aggregator Websites Make Money

Aggregator websites can make money through several different methods, depending on the underlying business model:

• Affiliate deals

If they can get tracking involved in their aggregation website, administrators may get a small cut for driving traffic and sales.

• Ad placements

Many aggregator websites will place ads through platforms like Google AdSense to make money from the traffic they get. Since they get a lot, that can quickly add up for popular sites.

• Subscriptions

More popular with content aggregator websites than any others – they may hide some features or articles under a small paywall.

Aggregator websites can make money through various other means as well such as brand deals, dedicated ad spots, and more, but some of them might dilute the trust users place on the site. As long as they’re not doing anything shady, however, it’s usually fine.

Key Features of the Best Aggregator Websites

As mentioned previously, accurate data collection is the bread and butter of aggregation. Without web scraping and crawling, most such websites would struggle to perform their main goal.

But many successful aggregators also offer numerous other features that may make them more attractive to users:

• Content curation to improve accuracy even further.
• APIs for more advanced users.
• User-friendly design and interface.
• Advanced search and filtering functions.
• Reliable hosting and infrastructure.

While the above features are quite essential to success, external factors will also play a role. People have to be able to discover the website itself as well – otherwise there won’t be much use in all that aggregation.

So, the best aggregator websites often invest a decent amount of money into various forms of marketing. Some go the influencer route, marketing their services through famous people – such an approach works great for subscription-based models.

Other aggregators turn the SEO route, optimizing their content and website to attract more users through search engines. In any case, marketing is highly important to aggregators, regardless of the monetization model used.

Step-by-Step Guide to Building an Aggregator Website

Most aggregators follow the same ready-made model unless they plan on inventing novel features that others don’t provide yet. But in general, here’s how you’d go about building an aggregator website:

• Niche selection : Narrow down your aggregator to a specific niche. You can always expand later on.
• Tech stack selection : Be sure you have a scraping tool (and residential proxies ), a content management system, a database, and reliable hosting.
• Content sourcing : Set up data collection through APIs, scraping, or direct partnerships.
• Website development : Focus on good search and filtering features while retaining a user-friendly design.
• Marketing : Use influencers, SEO, or other marketing channels to drive traffic.
• Monetization : Establish revenue streams through ads, affiliates, or subscriptions

All of the above is enough to start a basic aggregator site that can generate some amount of money. Do note that there may be significant upfront investment and some lag until returns start arriving – competition is fierce and advanced.

Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them

One of the biggest investments for any aggregator should be data validation and accuracy systems. If an aggregator provides incorrect or inaccurate information, users will quickly flock to another one.

Some aggregators will use several tools at once to collect data from the same source and then crosscheck to improve accuracy. While that may be beyond the scope of a starter budget, that’s something to always keep in mind.

Another issue is legal compliance , especially if scraping is involved. It’s always highly recommended to at least consult with a legal counsel, if not have on-hand for any support that may be required throughout the journey.

Finally, competition will always be a challenge, no matter the business model. Implementing monitoring strategies (which rely on web scraping, so it’s something you’d be doing already) is usually a good approach.