Data is an important aspect of our daily lives. It influences nearly every decision we make. Whether you are doing research for a school assignment, planning a vacation, or running a business, information from multiple sources is essential. Web scraping with proxies will collect that data for you.
If you’re not particularly tech-savvy or are merely inexperienced, figuring out everything necessary to get started may seem like a daunting task. Let me help you.
In this article, I’ll go over the types of data scrapers that are out there, the relationship between data scraping and using proxy servers, and why those proxies are crucial.
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What Is Web Scraping?
Keeping it short and sweet, web scraping is when a program visits websites on your behalf to gather the information you requested.
Web scraping allows us to automate the process of extracting data from the web, which can be used for a variety of applications, including market analysis, data mining, and competitive intelligence.
Source: Bergman, Michael K. White Paper: The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value. The Journal of Electronic Publishing, 2001.
That might not sound very impressive at first, but consider the speed and scale at which a computer can run. A single program running through proxies can do hundreds, if not thousands, of requests in the time it would take you to do a single check manually.
Also read: The Importance of Web Scraping
Is Web Scraping Legal?
Short answer: yes! As determined by law, if you are collecting data that is available in the public domain that isn’t copyright protected, then you’re good to go. Of course, this is assuming that what you plan to do with that information is legal.
However, confidential information or private contact information that you gather without permission and intend to sell to a 3rd party is not legal.
Even though it is legal in most cases, use your scraper respectfully. When using a scraper through a proxy to send numerous requests a second, directing them all to a single server can overwhelm it. This can manifest as service slowdown, or even outright crash the server.
In light of this threat, many websites have restrictions in place that block sources that exceed 600 requests in an hour.
Also read: Well Paid Web Scraping Projects
What Kinds of Scrapers Are There?
There are 3 types of web scrapers: browser plugins, software, and cloud-based scrapers.
Browser plugins are extensions you install in your browser, like Excavator. However, these kinds of scrapers are fairly limited, as you can only look at one page at a time.
Software web scrapers are bots you run that then send out requests as per how it is programmed. There are no coding-required ones out there that are point-and-click to set up, like dexi and Octoparse. Of course, you have to pay to use more than their most limited features.
To do anything advanced for free then you need to be willing to do some coding. If you have some experience with Python, then BeautifulSoup is a beginner-friendly tool to get you going.
Lastly, cloud-based scrapers are externally run and are capable of much larger-scale scraping. All the info they gather is saved to the cloud, and no downloads are required on your part. A prime example is Diggernaut, although their free option is extremely limited.
Also read: Five Reasons to Never Use Free Proxies for Web Scraping
What is a Proxy?
Proxies serve as the middleman between you and the websites you are accessing. Everything you do online will involve an IP address, which is effectively the digital equivalent of your street address.
The proxy will hand out its IP address instead, so it looks like those bot requests are coming from different places. There are a lot of different kinds of proxies out there, which can seem pretty confusing. I’ll go over them in just a little bit though, don’t worry.
Also read: Anti-Scraping Technology
Why Do I Need A Proxy When Web Scraping?
As I mentioned earlier, websites often have anti-bot measures in place to protect themselves from negative use cases. When your proxy hands them different IP addresses though, it can look like a bunch of different people are all doing normal requests. This way they won’t ban you due to spamming them.
Not only that but web scraping with proxies can make it look like you’re from a designated part of the globe. This way you can view location-specific information on the sites you’re collecting data from. Unfortunately, this feature often limits your available IP addresses and also raises the cost of the proxy.
Similarly, you can make it seem like you’re on a mobile device from a PC, or vice versa if you want to access the site’s alternate version.
Also read: Five Tips for Outsmarting Anti-Scraping Techniques
What Kinds of Proxy IPs Are Available?
There are three primary types of proxies with sub-variations within them. They are datacenter IPs, residential IPs, and mobile IPs.
Datacenter IP proxies are the most plentiful and affordable type of proxy. They’re a massive pool of IPs from collections of servers within data centers. Their downside is that the fact they are a proxy is detectable. Depending on what websites you are gathering data from, they might mass-ban the IP range that the data center has as part of their anti-bot countermeasures.
Residential IP proxies use collections of IP addresses that belong to private residences. This way any website you access via the proxy thinks it’s just a normal person doing a regular request. They can’t identify it as a proxy. Of course, this aspect raises the price of the proxy service, but it isn’t necessarily expensive. This is the optimal proxy for web scraping.
Mobile IP proxies use collections of mobile device IP addresses. These are the rarest type of proxy services and are also the most expensive. When data scraping, it’s generally advised to only pay extra for mobile IPs when you specifically want to see mobile-targeted results.
There are two types of residential proxies, rotating and static, which I’ll cover briefly.
Also read: Residential Proxy Use Cases
Types of Residential Proxies
The majority of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) give users rotating IP addresses by default. You’ll be assigned a new IP address each time you plug your modem in after having it unplugged for a while. Some ISPs let you sign up for a static IP address so it will never change. This is generally reserved for commercial use though.
A static residential proxy mimics this behavior, giving you one fixed IP address. This isn’t well suited for web scraping purposes though.
Sticky sessions can give you a specific IP for 1, 10, or 30 minutes depending on the proxy’s settings. There are many use cases for this style, but generally when web scraping you’ll want to go with a rotating residential proxy.
However, you’ll want to use a sticky session if the site you are gathering data from requires a login and a continuous session to access.
Also read: Top 5 Best Rotating Residential Proxies
Can I Use A Free Proxy?
Regardless of what you’re using a proxy for, you always should steer clear of free proxies. They’re the lowest quality, and can often be potentially hazardous to use. Because they’re free to use, they are usually blacklisted by most websites thanks to people using them to slam requests on their servers in the past.
Even worse, those public proxies are often carrying malware that can infect you. To add insult to injury, they might also expose your scraping activities if your security isn’t set up properly. In much lighter news, any respectable paid service won’t allow such antics.
Also read: Free Libraries to Build Your Own Web Scraper
FAQs
Q1. Is a VPN or proxy better for web scraping?
For web scraping, proxies—especially rotating and mobile proxies—are more effective than VPNs. They offer better scalability, higher IP diversity, and can effectively evade anti-bot systems. With a vast proxy network, rotating IPs, and mobile proxies, you can perform scraping operations more reliably and with a lower risk of detection or blocking. While VPNs provide some level of anonymity, they’re not as efficient or flexible for scraping tasks.
Q2. How does anti-bot work?
Anti-bot systems monitor user interactions on the target website to identify suspicious behavior that indicates automation. This includes tracking patterns such as excessively rapid page requests, repetitive actions, or accessing multiple pages in a short time. Bots typically perform these actions faster than a human could.
Anti-bot systems check the IP address making requests to the target website against known databases of malicious or suspicious IPs. If the IP has been flagged for previous malicious activities or is part of a known proxy server network, the system may block it automatically. This helps prevent bots from using proxy servers to mask their identities.
One of the most common anti-bot techniques is the use of CAPTCHA challenges. These challenges require the user to perform tasks that are easy for humans but difficult for bots, such as identifying objects in images or typing distorted text. CAPTCHA helps verify that the user is human and can effectively halt automated bots.
Anti-bot systems also use fingerprinting techniques to collect information about the device and browser making the request. This includes checking headers, cookies, JavaScript execution, and other parameters. Bots often fail to mimic the subtle nuances of real devices or browsers, leading to detection. If a pattern indicating a bot is detected, the system may block further requests from that device or proxy server.
Target websites often implement rate limiting to control the number of requests a user or IP can make in a set period. If an IP exceeds this threshold, it may be blocked or have its requests throttled (slowed down). This is particularly effective against bots engaged in web scraping activities that involve making rapid, large-scale requests.
Q3. How do I use a proxy in BeautifulSoup?
You’ll need to have both BeautifulSoup and Requests installed. You can do this via pip:
pip install beautifulsoup4 requests
Requests allows you to specify a proxy for each request. If you have access to a proxy rotation service with residential IPs, you can rotate the proxies for each request to mimic real user behavior and avoid getting blocked.
If you’re scraping a large number of pages, it’s best to rotate proxies to prevent being detected or blocked. You can use a list of proxies and rotate them manually, or use a proxy provider that handles proxy rotation automatically.
Also read: Tips for Crawling a Website
Conclusion
Now that you’re familiar with a few of the various web scraping tools that are available along with the proxies they are best paired with, I have one last piece of advice for you. When you’re setting up your scraper, avoid using direct links. Set it up to act like a ‘real’ user that finds the site from a search engine, goes through the site’s built-in search features, and maybe even makes it wander through a few random pages.
Whether you’re going to dip your toes into coding a scraper or use one with no coding required, you’re going to need a reliable proxy. Except for a few niche scenarios, you’ll want a rotating residential proxy. KocerRoxy is easy to use, affordable, and has top-tier customer service. Now that you know what to do, it’s time to start web scraping with proxies backing you up!
