How to Build a Company List from a Directory

Industry directories, trade-show exhibitor lists, supplier catalogs on marketplaces, association member lists — all of them are ready-made collections of companies. For market research, finding suppliers or preparing for a trade show, they are easier to work with in a spreadsheet. Here is how to collect such a list properly: the right columns, no duplicates, and phone numbers you can actually sort and compare.

Step 0. Decide what the list is for

The purpose decides the fields. Three typical cases:

Rule of thumb: collect the minimum the task needs. Extra fields mean extra cleaning, and if they include data about specific people, extra legal obligations too (more below).

Step 1. Collect the list

1. Open the first page of the directory with the filters you need — industry, region, category. The narrower the results, the more accurate the list.
2. Click the Grabsavo icon. It finds the repeated cards and marks them with thin teal frames and row numbers. If it marked the wrong thing, switch candidates, or press "Pick manually" and click one card of the list you need.
3. In the preview, rename the columns: Company, Category, City, Link. If a field is missing, add a column by clicking the element on the page.
4. Turn on pagination. Directories most often use page numbers (?page=N or /page/N) or a "Next" button; newer ones use "Show more" or infinite scroll.
5. Keep the default delays — a random 2–4 seconds between pages — and cap the number of pages if needed.

The free version collects up to 10 pages and 500 rows per run, which is often enough for a narrow, single-region selection.

Step 2. Add details from company pages

A directory list usually has only the name and city. Website, address, registration number, year founded and lines of business are on the company page. Pro has a details mode for this:

1. Pick the column with links to company pages.
2. Grabsavo opens the first page and suggests fields. It looks for schema.org markup — many directories mark companies up as an organization with address, phone and website — and for spec tables like "Founded", "Employees", "Industry".
3. Tick the fields you want or click elements on the page.
4. Start the crawl. Grabsavo visits every link, no more than two pages at a time, and adds the columns.

If a page fails to load or a field is missing, you will see it in the _status column. Filter on it and check those rows by hand — there are usually few.

Step 3. Remove duplicates

Companies are often listed more than once: one firm in three categories, or several branches. What to use as the key:

• the company's page URL in the directory — reliable unless the directory creates a separate page per category;
• a registration number (VAT number, company number) — the best option when the page shows it;
• the website domain — when a company has several cards but one site.

Grabsavo removes duplicates by a key column, both during the run and as a separate cleaning step. The quality report shows how many rows were removed.

If the key you need is not in the data, add a computed column — for example "name + city":

concat({Company}, " ", {City})

Step 4. Normalise phone numbers

Directories write phone numbers every possible way: 020 7946 0018, +44 20 7946 0018, (020) 7946-0018, sometimes two numbers separated by a comma. To compare them and find duplicates, bring them to one format.

In Grabsavo, use text replacement with a regular expression:

1. If a cell holds several numbers, first split the column on , so each number gets its own column.
2. Replace [^0-9+] with nothing — only digits and the plus sign remain.
3. Replace the national prefix with the country code, e.g. ^0(?=\d{10}$) → +44 for UK numbers.

Cleaning steps are saved and re-applied on the next run.

In Google Sheets the same with a formula:

=REGEXREPLACE(REGEXREPLACE(B2, "[^0-9+]", ""), "^0(\d{10})$", "+44$1")

In Excel 365 you can keep only digits like this:

=CONCAT(IFERROR(MID(B2,SEQUENCE(LEN(B2)),1)*1,""))

Step 5. Check completeness

Look at the quality report. Two items are especially useful:

• columns with many empty values — if 70% of companies have no "Website", the field probably sits elsewhere on the page and is worth adding by click;
• similar elements that were not collected — for example "premium" cards at the top of the list with a different layout.

Using contact data responsibly

This part matters; it is not a formality.

• A company is not a person. Name, registration number, general office phone and address are company data. A director's name, a manager's mobile number or a personal email are personal data, regulated by the GDPR in the EU (and by 152-FZ in Russia). Being listed in a directory does not make them free for any use.
• Cold outreach. Marketing by email, SMS or phone is governed by separate rules in most countries, often requiring prior consent. A list scraped from a directory is not consent. In Russia, for example, Article 18(1) of the Advertising Law allows advertising over telecom networks only with the recipient's prior consent.
• Directory terms. Many directories forbid copying their database. Read their terms and do not export the whole catalog when you need a narrow slice.

A sensible approach: build a list of organisations for research or shortlisting, then reach out through the company's official channels — the contact form, the general address, representatives at the trade show. More in Web scraping and the law.

Grabsavo runs only in your browser, with your session: page data does not go to Grabsavo servers, and it uses no proxies and bypasses no sign-ins.

A template for next time

If you refresh the list every quarter, save the setup as a template (Pro): columns, pagination, item-page details and cleaning steps. Next time you open the directory and start the run. You can share a template with a colleague as a link. More about templates on /templates.

Try it

Practise on a list with different kinds of pagination in our demo catalog. Install Grabsavo from /install — 7 days of Pro without a card.

Sources

• Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Article 14 — gdpr-info.eu
• FAS Russia letter No. AK/21587/13 of 4 June 2013 on Article 18(1) of the Advertising Law (in Russian) — ConsultantPlus