A proxy server acts as an intermediary between the internet resource and the user, allowing the real IP address to be hidden. This enables users to bypass various blocks, maintain anonymity online, and conceal their location.
Proxies have become indispensable for parsing because sending too many requests from a single IP address may lead to that IP being blocked, a captcha being required, or a significant slowdown in page loading speed. Using proxies helps to bypass blocks, evenly distribute the load on the server, and avoid captcha prompts.
Which proxies are best suited for parsing?
There are different types of proxy servers, but not all are suitable for parsing. The best ones for this purpose are:
- Data center proxies. They attract specialists due to their high speed and low cost, but they are not very reliable – they are relatively easy to detect and block.
- Residential proxies. In this case, the site is accessed through IP addresses of real users, making them harder to detect by simple anti-bot tools.
- Mobile proxies. They offer the highest level of anonymity on the network, are difficult to detect, but are quite expensive.
There are dozens of paid and free proxy servers available online, but free proxies are not recommended. Most of them are well-known to major websites where they are already blocked. Moreover, many people use them simultaneously, which significantly slows down their performance.
Paid proxies are usually divided into private and shared. The first option is more expensive but the most reliable since it is used by only one client. Shared proxies can be used by multiple clients simultaneously, who may also try to access the same online resource at the same time. This increases the risk of getting blocked.
Important parameters for choosing
To select the most suitable proxy server for parsing, you need to pay attention to several key parameters:
- Data transfer speed. The higher the speed, the better the parser’s performance.
- Provider reliability. It’s better to use trusted providers whose servers operate reliably with minimal risk of blocking.
- Number of IP addresses in the package. The more IPs available, the lower the chance of being blocked.
- Geolocation. This is an important factor if you need to parse region-specific data.
Mobile proxies have become a relatively new solution in the digital services market. Instead of a personal computer, they use a mobile device as an intermediary. This increases the trust of major websites, as they tend to ban gadgets less often than PCs. This is because when one mobile device is blocked, all devices connected through the same cell tower of the mobile operator are blocked automatically.
How to configure proxies for parsing?
Proxy configuration for parsing depends on the type of server and the tool used. Usually, to configure, you need to specify the proxy server address and port; in some cases, you also need to enter login and password.
For example, in Python, configuration is done using the requests library. The code snippet looks like this:
import requests
proxy = {
'http': 'http://login:password@ip:port',
'https': 'https://login:password@ip:port',
}
try:
response = requests.get('https://example.com', proxies=proxy)
response.raise_for_status() # #
print(response.text)
except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
print(f"Error during request: {e}")
If Selenium is used as the tool to work with the proxy server, the code will look like this:
from selenium import webdriver
PROXY = "login:password@ip:port"
options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument('--proxy-server=%s' % PROXY)
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)
driver.get('https://example.com')
If other tools are planned to be used, you should refer to their developer documentation. To minimize the risk of blocking, a proxy pool is usually created – several servers are used with periodic switching between them. This increases parsing efficiency and significantly reduces the risk of bans.
How to bypass anti-parsing systems?
To bypass anti-parsing systems, it is necessary to properly configure proxy usage and distribute requests. Here are several methods to bypass anti-parsing systems:
- Rotate IP addresses for different groups of requests. If many requests come from the same IP address, this will attract the attention of anti-bot systems.
- Monitor activity and promptly replace IPs. Special tools help track request speed, error counts, and the status of IP addresses. If any are blocked, they should be promptly removed.
- Integrate automatic CAPTCHA recognition services into the script. These services recognize CAPTCHAs, allowing you to bypass anti-bot systems and soft blocks. The most common services include SolveCaptcha, AntiCaptcha, 2Captcha, and others can also be used.
- Use headless browsers to bypass JavaScript challenges: these challenges confirm that the request is sent by a human. Browsers like Selenium or Puppeteer can execute JavaScript, which allows bypassing restrictions and obtaining information from the site.
- Use a pool of modern User-Agents that change periodically. This prevents using the same User-Agent across all threads, reducing the risk of blocking. Additionally, remember that each proxy has a limit on simultaneous connections. It’s better to use no more than 10 concurrent connections per IP address – this helps avoid overload and prevents blocking.
For higher parsing efficiency, constant monitoring is required. Indicators of problems in data collection include response delays, repeated failed requests with error 500, and frequent CAPTCHAs. It is necessary to keep statistics and track how many requests led to CAPTCHA appearance or blocking. If proxy success rate decreases, it should be removed from the pool.
Successful Parsing Cases
Parsing allows you to quickly collect and analyze information from multiple websites simultaneously for your own purposes. For example, it can be used to monitor competitors’ products and prices, analyze changing data on marketplaces, and compare sales conditions from different sellers.
Here are a few examples of successful commercial uses of parsing:
- A large pharmaceutical company collects data about its products and competitors from 13 online pharmacies and major marketplaces. They track price dynamics, user reviews, ratings, and discounts. After setting up parsing, daily monitoring is launched, the extracted data is uploaded to Google Sheets, and displayed on the client’s dashboard. As a result, the company can quickly analyze competitors’ actions to promptly respond to market changes.
- A household appliance manufacturer works with several major retailers and wants to more closely monitor their partners’ activities to prevent unjustified price drops or hikes. Sales occur on 29 websites, so manual tracking is nearly impossible. Parsing is used to gather information: data is collected for 500 products across 20 Russian cities. Products are found via partner catalogs, after which data collection is launched and the information is sent to the client’s FTP server. The client receives accurate consolidated data on partners’ actions and product sales.
- A client sells women’s clothing on the Wildberries marketplace and wants to monitor their rankings by key search terms. Over 100 high-frequency queries were selected for daily monitoring using parsing. The collected data was uploaded to a Google Sheet for analysis. As a result, the client could identify the most effective search queries that led the majority of buyers to visit their product pages.
These are just a few examples showing that using parsing provides valuable business insights and helps track changes on the web more efficiently. Using proxy servers helps protect against site blocks and makes parsing more effective.
Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
There are several common mistakes that often lead to problems with proxy servers:
- «Naive scaling». Simply increasing the number of threads without distributing them across different IP addresses will cause hundreds of requests to be sent from the same address. The site will quickly detect this anomaly when analyzing incoming requests, leading to a block. Anti-bot systems usually easily recognize too high a request rate or uniformity in requests, which results in IP address blocking. To avoid this, proper request management and more precise configuration are necessary.
- Using «burned» proxies. This usually concerns free proxy servers that are used by a large number of clients. They quickly end up on major websites’ blacklists, so incoming IP addresses from such proxies are detected and blocked rapidly. To identify «burned» proxies, you can send test requests to sites with strict anti-bot protections.
- Too «bot-like» behavior. Anti-bot systems detect requests that are too fast, sent at regular intervals, or exhibit a precise sending rhythm – all signs of parsing. Actions should mimic real human users, so requests must have uneven, random delays between them; adding headers like Referer can help.
When using proxy servers for parsing, it is crucial to mimic live user behavior as closely as possible to avoid blocks during data collection. Anti-bot systems constantly evolve and detect overly obvious «artificial» actions, which inevitably leads to bans.
How Many Proxies Are Needed for Parsing?
The more proxy servers used, the higher the parsing speed will be. The exact number depends on various factors. The main one is the number of requests after which the site starts applying blocks. To find this number, you can run parsing on 200 pages without proxies and determine when the block begins.
Start with single-thread mode while monitoring logs to ensure correct responses to requests. If no blocks occur, gradually increase the load. Blocks can be recognized by redirects to captcha pages, connection errors, or empty responses.
Using proxy servers allows parsing to be much more effective and safe. They help obtain the required data with minimal risk by preventing parser blocks. The right proxy can be selected for any project based on its specifics and budget. PSB Proxy provides access to residential servers, enabling millions of IP addresses worldwide with minimal risk of blocking.