The Ultimate Guide to Web Scraping Using Proxies [2022]

How does a proxy server work?

A proxy server acts as a link between the user’s computer and the website they want to see. It conceals the device’s actual IP address. When a device and its network wish to access a website, they make a request validated by HTTP, and then the client can get to it. A proxy server can handle a user’s request while hiding the user’s true identity.

This protects your privacy while also allowing you to browse websites that they might not otherwise be able to access. There are a few fast proxy servers and others that are free as well. You are recommended to pick servers that will give you the optimum speed and security for your network. Proxy servers are simple to use, and many international corporations utilize them for their internet operations. It can assist with various tasks, including geo-tagging marketing content for businesses.

What are the different types of proxy servers?

• Residential Proxy

Because of their IP addresses of actual, physical machines, residential proxies are by far the finest proxies for most uses. They appear to all servers as regular users and are nearly impossible to detect. Getting access to data is simple when you use a residential proxy. Clients can evade regional restrictions and cloaking, which is a deceptive technique used by some sites to offer misleading data to clients connected through data center proxies. Companies can buy residential proxies to enhance the security of their online presence. 

• Data Center Proxy

The name of data center proxies stems from the method by which it obtains an IP address. These IP addresses are not associated with any Internet service provider. The data center proxy makes use of an IP address or a pool of IP addresses that are often owned by LIRs (Local Internet Registries), such as web hosting companies. Datacenter IPs are typically blocked by web servers since their traffic isn’t generated by actual people using real browsers and devices. Their IP addresses and sessions are easily traced. Because of its performance, speed, and low cost, several sorts of proxies are chosen.

• Anonymous Proxy

Anonymous proxies send connection requests without revealing any client information. An anonymous proxy connects to the destination server as if it were doing it alone. Anonymous proxies, as the name implies, give you the privacy you need when online. It’s the proxy that’ll keep your IP and location hidden the best. The manner this proxy manages connection requests is indicated by the term anonymous proxies. You might use a home proxy or a data center proxy to hide your identity. The word ‘anonymous’ describes how your proxy server handles connection requests.

• HTTP Proxy

Any proxy server that connects to the web server or the client using the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is known as an HTTP proxy. The vast majority of proxies are HTTP proxies due to the ubiquitous use of HTTP on the internet.

• Mobile Proxy

These proxies are mobile devices that are provided by network providers, as the name says. These provide the same benefit as home IPs in terms of minimizing the likelihood of being blocked and allowing access to geo-specific material on certain websites. This also means that the scraper will use these IPs to access and scrape the mobile adaptation of the website, which is usually very similar to the desktop version.

• Forward Proxy 

A forward proxy is a proxy that a user or a group of users uses to connect to any server. It enables users to make website requests following the administration’s internet usage restrictions. As a result, specific requests may be turned down.

• Reverse Proxy

A reverse proxy intercepts user requests for web data access and permits or refuses access based on the bandwidth load of the enterprise. This prevents websites from being overloaded by DoS assaults.

Benefits of using Proxies for Web Scraping

Take a look at some of the most popular benefits of using a proxy server for web scraping. 

• Browse in complete anonymity. 

Because of the nature of web scraping, it’s unlikely that you’d want to reveal your device’s identity. If a website recognizes your identity, you may be targeted with advertisements, your private IP data may be tracked, or you may be prevented from visiting the site. When you use a proxy, you can utilize the proxy server’s IP address instead of your own.

• Exceed the rate restrictions 

Web scrapers are typically limited in the number of requests they can send in a given period of time on websites that don’t mind them lingering around. If the target website notices that the limit has been exceeded, it has the option to block the IP address that is sending the requests.

While you’re focusing on a site with hundreds or even a large number of pages, this might be an issue. Your scraper could quickly go over that rate restriction, resulting in your IP being blocked. Proxies handle this problem by employing many IP addresses while maintaining each IP address’s request rate restriction. Requests are distributed across multiple IP addresses by proxy servers.

• Get access to geo-restricted content. 

Organizations who use site scraping for marketing and deals may want to keep an eye on what other websites have to offer for a given geographic location in order to provide relevant product features and prices. The crawler can access all of the content available in the chosen region by using residential proxies having IP addresses from that region. Furthermore, requests from the same region appear to be less suspicious and hence are less likely to be blocked.

• Avoid IP bans

Another advantage of utilizing a proxy is that it keeps your IP address from being blocked. Crawl data restrictions and other anti-bot detection technologies are commonly included on modern websites. This prevents scrapers from sending too many requests to their websites. However, you can evade rate limits by utilizing a pool of proxies to route traffic through multiple IP addresses.