Do You Need Proxies for Web Scraping?
Data is the core of every successful business. You need relevant competitor data to surpass your direct competitors. You need customer data to understand the needs and desires of your target market. Job market data helps improve recruitment processes, and pricing data enables you to maximize profits while keeping your products and services affordable. At first glance, collecting relevant data seems easy—just search on Google for the information you need, and you’ll find thousands of results. However, when you need larger volumes of data, this manual approach won’t work. You need to automate this process with web scraping bots, and you need to use a proxy service to do it right.
About Web Scraping
First and foremost, you need to understand what web scraping is. Simply put, it’s the process of collecting and later analyzing data that is freely available on one of the millions of websites currently online. It’s valuable for lead generation, competitor research, price comparison, marketing, and target market research.
Even manual data extraction, such as searching for product pricing information yourself and exporting it to an Excel file, counts as a type of web scraping. However, web scraping is more commonly automated since manual data extraction is slow and prone to human error.
Web scraping automation involves scraper bots that crawl dozens of websites simultaneously, loading their HTML codes and extracting the relevant information. The bots then present the data in a readable form that’s easy to understand and analyze when needed.
Challenges of Web Scraping
Although web scraping may seem straightforward, it rarely is. You will encounter numerous challenges when you first start, with some of the major ones being:
Prevented Bot Access
Few websites will willingly allow bot access as it can cause many problems. Bots create unwanted traffic, which can overwhelm servers and cause analytics issues for the site. Additionally, there are many malicious bots designed to launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, steal information, and more. Therefore, if a site identifies your web scrapers as bots, your access will immediately be blocked.
IP Blocks
Whenever you connect to a website, it reads your device information, including your IP address. If your IP address exhibits slightly suspicious activity—such as making a large number of information requests in a short period—you will likely be presented with CAPTCHAs. If the activity is highly suspicious, you might even encounter IP blocks that completely prevent your access to the site.
Geo-Restrictions
Geo-restricted content is any type of content available in some geographical regions but not in others. For instance, Netflix is known for its geo-restrictions, offering users in different parts of the world access to different shows and movies. If your IP is in a location restricted by the site, you won’t be able to access the content.
Proxies as a Solution
To overcome the web scraping challenges mentioned above, you need a reliable proxy service, such as Swiftproxy. Proxies act as intermediaries between your device and the internet, forwarding all your information requests to the site you’re trying to scrape and then returning the site’s responses to you.
During this process, the site you’re scraping never gets to read your device’s information or its actual IP address. Instead, it reads the proxy server’s information, keeping you largely anonymous.
Depending on the proxy server you choose, you can receive multiple fake IP addresses that help hide your actual location and allow you to scrape data seamlessly.
Conclusion
Web scraping without proxies is virtually impossible. Many websites use advanced technologies to prevent bot access, so your IP address would quickly be blacklisted and blocked. A proxy provides a simple solution by hiding your real IP address, allowing you to launch your web scrapers without concerns.
If you want to read new articles daily on topics like Business, Tech, Fashion, Health, and Lifestyle, be sure to visit this site: blogproject.co.uk.