What are proxies for web scraping?
Have you heard of web scraping?
That’s right, the method you use to employ to extract data from a site.
But this process might get tricky, which is precisely why proxies can help you.
Proxy management is one of the ideal strategies that assist you in web scraping. Irrespective of the scale of web scraping, the use of proxy becomes mandatory at times, and it is a more painless process when you compare scraping vs. crawling.
So, let’s find out some of the associated details to understand the use of proxies for web scraping.
Why Are Proxies Essential For Web Scraping?
No website owner will let you steal data from their websites without their consent. Web scraping is ideally helpful in many ways, but you need to hide your identity in the process.
For every scraping task, proxies are pretty useful to help you protect your IP address from getting revealed.
Here are the detailed aspects explaining the necessity of proxies in brief:
1. Proxies Mask Your IP Address
The website owners usually trace your IP address if you are scraping their website without their consent. For keeping your identity disguised, you need to use proxies that mask your IP address. With proper implementation, the target website will not get hold of the proxy machine’s IP address, leading you to extract data seamlessly.
2. Proxies Help You Bypass Bot Detection
Some of the websites are integrated with bots for detecting any unwanted data extraction over the site. The web scrapers will immediately get blocked right after the bots detect you are scrapping over the site.
By using proxies, you replace your authentic IP address with the proxy IP.
As a result, when you land on the website’s page, the bots will see the proxy data embedded on your IP rather than the real information.
So, technically, you are a user with a disguised identity that would eventually help you bypass bots or any other such restrictions over the site for scrapping.
3. Proxies Help You Avoid IP blocking
Most of the web scrapers make use of residential proxies for that matter. The reason behind it is that many people use the data center proxies for masking their identity.
Therefore, there is a chance that two users are sharing the same proxy IP, which makes it easy for websites to block you out.
In the case of residential proxies, you will be connected to a real device. It means that no one else would be connected to that device, making it impossible for the target site to block your IP out.
Ultimately, using these proxies will help you be someone else while you do the needful scrapping.
4. Avoid Geo-Restriction
Proxies will rotate your IP based on your chosen locations, which would help you surpass the geo-restrictions enabled on the target website.
Geo-restrictions is a user blocking technique to keep the users out from the website and track them based on their geographic location.
Proxies help you change your IP based on the location that the website has access for. It would eventually help you access into the site to get your web scraping done.
What Are The Different Types Of Proxies?
Here are the three types of proxies available for the web scrapers to complete web scraping in disguise:
Residential IP
As stated above, Residential proxies are considered the best type used for web scraping as it helps you connect with a unique gadget.
It allows you to get a real domestic IP address given to you by ISP. However, it is considerably more expensive than datacentre IP but is worth the value.
Datacentre IP
Datacentre proxies are shared servers. It means multiple users use one proxy IP address at a time. It is considered less significant than that of a residential IP.
It’s because multiple users using the same proxy makes the identity vulnerable for getting revealed. But it is a cheaper option and is at least better than no-masking of data.
Static residential
Static residential or mobile proxies are a blend of datacentre IP and residential IP. The best perk you would find with this type of IP is that the proxy IPs available here are highly anonymous.
Nevertheless, this is the most expensive amongst the other two, which becomes non-economical for performing web scraping. Hence, many users prefer other types of IPs instead.
How To Choose The Best Proxy For Your Project?
Follow these considerations mentioned below for choosing the right proxy for your web scraping needs:
● Quality of the proxy: Choose a high-quality proxy capable of providing greater anonymity with lower identity detection risks so that you never get banned while working in a project
● Privacy: Look at the privacy aspects based on your web scraping needs. In general, residential or private proxies offer better privacy than datacenter proxies. Hence, they are more reliable and exhibit high uptime.
● High speed: For web scraping, speed is highly important. Low connectivity or poor page loading speed hamper of work and kill your time. So, choose a proxy that can provide that high speed needed for your work.
● Data volume: Consider your data extraction needs like how much data you would be extracting
● Budget: Keep in mind your budget, as you do not need to spend a lot of money on web scraping if you are tight on financial aspects.
Conclusion
I hope you now have a brief knowledge about the importance of proxies for web scraping. You can extract data safely without being noticed with the use of relevant proxies.
So, if you need web scraping, get a proxy to disguise your actual IP address!
