Information is the most valuable currency in the digitised global economy. With over 5.3 billion Internet users, there has never been more opportunity for businesses, but there is also more danger from potential cyber threats. To stay competitive, e-commerce, manufacturing companies, and all that produce or offer services need valuable insights on how the market trends move and what sells at which price.
While you can browse your competitor to see the prices, such a task would be time-consuming, negating the benefits. Like pricing, knowing what sells the best on some markets or even acquiring cold leads from data are things why many companies rely on data mining.
Corporations and big companies can invest silly amounts in acquiring and analyzing data. Because this process is not cheap, medium, and small companies often go in the other direction. One of the most affordable ways to get valuable information and insight from it is through web scraping.
Benefits and obstacles for web scrapers
Web scraping is a technique of gathering information from other websites. Specific software tools send large amounts of requests and gather all available information from the destination. Quality scrapers can preserve those data in easily readable formats. You can get a negative response because you will send a high volume of queries to the server, such as blocking your IP address.
Websites with better protection also employ technologies like CAPTCHAs or honeypot traps to discourage bots from browsing the website.
Proxy servers to the rescue
Most web scrapers don’t rely solely on bots; they would get an IP ban quickly. Another service that you’ll need for data mining and web scraping tasks is a proxy server. As the name indicates, a server acts as an intermediary between your client device and the destination server. Proxies will hide your valid IP address and present your queries as they come from another IP.
Because an IP address reveals so much about the user, including location, and for skilled searchers, an additional level of privacy and security is essential for advanced users. Also, if you’re a marketer or business owner who scraps data from competitors, you don’t want them to find out.
Proxies can do more than just hide your IP. You can bypass geo-restrictions and access markets and services originally unavailable in your location. Proxy servers could also improve the performance because they can cache some information. Proxy services vary by type, and it isn’t easy to navigate all the options.
Most users start with regular shared proxy servers where more users share the same pool of IP addresses. While this approach works fine in many use cases, the danger of “bad neighbor” can ruin your efforts if you must run business-sensitive operations. If other users earn bans or IP blocks, your shared IP won’t be able to perform.
Conversely, you can use a private proxy server with an IP address assigned only to you. The advantages are apparent, like security, as only you can utilize the IPs. You can expect much fewer blocks from authoritative websites, and because most private IPs come from data center proxies, you will get immense speed. Proxyway created a comprehensive list of the best private proxy providers.
Datacenter, residential, or ISP proxies?
Private proxies get the speed and reliability of datacenter proxies but suffer from a lack of authority. Because IP addresses don’t come from Internet Service Providers, some websites can think of them as suspicious.
Some providers started registering their datacenter IP addresses under residential ISPs, creating ISP proxies that combine the speed of datacenter and authenticity where websites see such IP addresses as coming from real users.
Residential proxies are a viable alternative to private proxies. They have IPs assigned from ISPs and look genuine to destination websites. Residential proxy servers are more expensive than datacenter, and don’t have their speed.
Among varied proxy server offerings, you can also find mobile proxies. They are similar to residential proxies, with a critical difference in mobile network providers assigning IP addresses.
Web scraping proxies
ISP proxies are your best guess for advanced web scraping as they have reliable IPs and offer more speed than residential proxies. Private IPs mean you can have only yourself to blame if you get blocked.
One of the techniques you can employ for web scraping is rotating IPs, where your proxy provider will automatically switch to another IP after a set period. This way, the destination server won’t attribute a high volume of queries to a single IP.
Another thing to consider while scraping is acting as much as possible, like a regular Internet user. Don’t run the bot all day and set a limit to the number of queries in a minute.
One thing to avoid is using free proxy servers, as they can’t match the performance of paid services, and because they are often overwhelmed by ads and banners, you can find malicious content. Blocked IPs and poor speed are also common for free proxies.
Conclusion
In a digitally globalized world, information is a crucial commodity. Businesses of all sizes leverage web scraping and data mining to gain essential insights and maintain a competitive edge.
However, potential obstacles exist, from IP bans to sophisticated website protections. To avoid such issues, users utilize proxy servers in combination with web scraper software. Proxies shield anonymity, enabling users to navigate through geo-restrictions and access market data seamlessly. Private proxies offer a reliable solution for business-critical operations, ensuring exclusive access and mitigating the risks associated with shared IP addresses.
