How Can a Webpage be Scraped without Python Preventing it?
Regardless of how easy the activity of web scraping feels, in reality, it isn’t that simple. Even after properly following all the steps, you might be blocked by the concerned website right before you are about to do the major task. The frustration is real, therefore, this article will cover how you can save your web scraping API activity with the help of certain steps. To begin with, though many of you might already be familiar with the term web scraping, some aren’t aware. It can be defined as a procedure of extracting or scraping data from a particular website by utilizing the HTTP protocol or the web browser.
Though the process can be done manually, a bot or a web crawler automates the process. You might wonder about the complexities related to web scraping considered illegal. Let us debunk the myth, it is completely legal to scrape data that are publicly available. The major issue faced by certain people while scraping data from Google or similar big websites is ignorance or getting the IP blocked. Don’t get stressed about this fact since we are providing all the possible solutions to avert getting blocked.
Incorporate Rotating Proxies
You might be addressing multiple requests from an identical IP, and the moment the website owner catches that footprint of yours, your web scraping API is blocked instantly by examining the server log files. To prevent this, use rotating proxies which allocate a fresh IP address picked from the cluster of proxies gathered in the proxy pool.
By utilizing the proxies you are required to rotate the IP addresses to deter getting blocked by the website owners. All that is required is writing a script that offers usage of any IP address from the pool and let you request using that same IP. Rotating IPs make you appear as a human and not a bot.
Incorporate IPs of Google Cloud Platform
While accessing your web scraping python API, you can choose to use the Google Cloud Functions as the hosting medium. Here, your web scraper can be combined with altering the user agent to GoogleBot. You will be represented as a GoogleBot and not a scraper. To explain the same, GoogleBot is a web crawler and a product of Google that sees sites now and then for accumulating site documents to develop a searchable index for the Google Search Engine. Most sites don’t block GoogleBot, therefore, chances are low of your scraper API not getting blocked as well.
Slow Down your Web Scraping Process
While you use an automated scraping API python, the speed inculcated is immensely high, and this is instantly detected by the anti-scrapers plugin. But, if you slow down your scraping work now and then, just like a human does, the anti-scrapers might think you to be a human. When you are putting forward requests rapidly, the website might be crashed for the users. Limit the count of requests to prevent the website server from becoming overloaded, as well as, the IP from getting blocked.
Scrape at Random Times During the Day
Another way of preventing your web scraping python API from getting blocked is scraping at different times. When you are logging into the same site at diverse hours, it lessens your footprint. For instance, in case you begin scraping at 8.00 regularly, then begin scraping half an hour late, like 8.30 or 8.45 for the following days. When you add a few minutes to your beginning time every day, you are simultaneously dissuading the crawler’s detection algorithm as well.
Incorporate a CAPTCHA Solving Service
You might have already noticed certain websites using the CAPTCHA feature for investigating bot traffic. To fight that, we have the CAPTCHA-solving service that will help bypass the additional layer of security. Some of the solving services are:
- Anti Captcha
- DeathByCaptcha
Though, it is to be noted that these services charge extra and might escalate the time taken to scrape data from the websites. Therefore, if you are planning to opt for this, consider the additional time and money you need to bear for using the CAPTCHA-solving service.
Scraping from Google Cache
Another way to prevent blockage of your web scraping API is scraping from Google cache. This can be implemented on sites whose data is refreshed rarely. It is a known fact that Google gathers the cached copy of certain websites. Instead of putting forward a request to the authentic one, send a request to its cached data. For accessing the cached data of any web page, simply add the URL of the website before its URL.
From these six ways of preventing blockage of the web scraping API, you can choose the one you feel the most comfortable with. Each has different features and costs as well. You can try out each of them to understand how it works.
