Proxies
The first step when it comes to the bypass of scraper blocking is to take advantage of IP proxies.
Each web connection is made from a specific IP address which acts as a unique identifier for a web peer. So, scraping through a single identifier (IP) will often result in scraper blocking as it's easy to identify.
This is where proxies come in, which are intermediary servers that act as a relay between the scraper and the target website. Proxies allow scrapers to distribute their requests through multiple IP identifiers.
Additionally, proxies can help with scraping geographically locked websites which are only available to IP addresses from specific countries.
Quick Intro to Proxies
IP proxies are real servers that cost money to maintain and run, so they are often expensive though very important for scaling up web scraping.
Proxies are generally split into 3 types:
- Datacenter - hosted on datacenter servers
- Residential - hosted on residential computers
- Mobile - hosted on mobile phone towers
Naturally, residential and mobile proxies are the most suited for web scraping as these are used by human web browsers too. Though, there's much more to proxy quality than that - for that see our complete introduction below 👇
Complete Intro to Proxies
Complete introduction to proxies in web scraping: configuarion, use cases and everything you should know when scraping with proxies.
Millions of Proxies with Scrapfly
Scrapfly includes millions of residential and datacenter proxies from over 50+ different countries!
Tools and Tips
Proxies are a huge subject spanning many different mediums that also apply to web scraping. Here are some proxy-related tools and tips that can help you with your web scraping projects:
Cloudproxy
Tool for turning datacenters (digitalocean, aws etc.) to datacenter proxies.
Proxy Alternatives
Overview of paid proxy alternatives like TOR and VPN.
Next - Scaling
Next up let's take a look at how to scale up web scrapers to scrape millions of pages with limited resources.