What are some potential pitfalls to consider when using PHP to extract data from external websites?

One potential pitfall when using PHP to extract data from external websites is that the website's structure or layout may change, causing your scraping code to break. To mitigate this risk, it's important to regularly monitor the website for any changes and update your scraping code accordingly. Additionally, you should handle potential errors or exceptions gracefully to prevent your script from crashing.

try {
    // Your scraping code here
} catch (Exception $e) {
    // Handle any errors or exceptions
    echo 'Error: ' . $e->getMessage();
}