Web scraping is gathering vast amounts of data from various websites. It’s a process that collects unstructured data and converts it into structured data. Instead of manually copying and pasting the data you want to gather and use to make a database, web scraping can help you extract the data from that website.
Even though you can do web scraping manually, using specialized tools is much easier and more efficient. However, since websites can have different shapes and forms, many web scraping tools and features exist.
When web scraping, you give your tool one or more URLs to load. Before scraping, you must determine what kind of data it should collect. Then, it will load the HTML code and present you with the filtered and organized data from the website. The tool will harvest all your selected data and convert it into a more accessible format.
Whether it be market monitoring or price research, 2024 will bring higher demand for data collecting and web scraping. More and more companies use generative AI that needs immense amounts of data. Thus, you gather financial data and get a much more comprehensive range of data sets to support this ever-expanding trend.
The importance of proxies in web scraping
If websites detect many requests for scraping from the same IP address, they may restrict access or block that IP address. To avoid that, use proxies to hide the IP address of your computer or the device doing the scraping. That way, your web scraping software can send requests to websites through a different IP address every time, making it more challenging for the website to detect and block scraping.
Moreover, some websites may ban your IP address if they detect scraping activity. Using a proxy makes your requests come from a different IP address each time.
We suggest using a proxy when web scraping for better efficiency and a seamless scraping process.
Furthermore, some websites may have geo-restricted data. By using a proxy, you make requests from a different IP address each time, making going around these location-based constraints easier. It will allow your web scraping software to access the whole website’s database, even the location-based data.
It’s also important to note that making too many requests from the same IP address can overload the website and slow it down or crash it. By using a proxy, you improve the speed of the web scraping process and make it more convenient.
Managing proxies – Shadowrocket integration
Managing proxies is a complex task that requires a lot of practice, but the right tools can make the web scraping process more efficient and effective. All of your web traffic should go through proxies. However, some applications don’t have the default proxy server setting.
That makes managing proxies difficult. Computers and Android devices use specialized applications to integrate proxy servers into their software. These applications bring support and automatization to proxy services and, thus, the web scraping activity. For iPhones and iPads, we suggest the Shadowrocket application.
With the help of Shadowrocket integration, you can use a set of proxies for web scraping on iPhones and iPads. You can manage proxy servers manually, but it is much more efficient via this utility application. It helps with rotating proxies, setting the proxy rotation rules, checking their status, monitoring proxy usage, and more.
Shadowrocket integration involves the process of incorporating the use of proxies into the web scraping software. This process covers the list of proxy servers you want to use, configuring the software to use them, and switching to new ones if necessary. You can check Oxylabs (view website) for a simple and quick integration tutorial.
How to Avoid Being Blacklisted When Doing Web Scrapping
To avoid being blacklisted when web scraping, there are certain steps you should take to ensure that your scraping activities are not in violation of any laws or regulations.
First, make sure that the website you are scraping from allows web scraping on its site. Many sites have terms and conditions which explicitly forbid web scraping activities and could result in your IP being blocked if found out. It’s always best to check the website’s terms first before engaging in any web scraping activity.
Second, refrain from using automated scripts to scrape large amounts of data in a short amount of time. Automated scripts often consume too much bandwidth and can draw unwanted attention from administrators who may flag your activity as malicious.
Third, use a proxy server when performing web scraping. Proxy servers mask your IP address and allow you to remain anonymous while accessing websites around the globe without alerting their administrators that someone is actively scraping their site. You might also want to consider using different proxies for different requests so as not to draw attention to any single IP address.
Finally, read up on the laws governing web scraping in the countries or states where you intend to access websites or gather data from. While web scrapping is usually permitted within most regions, there are still legal parameters around what is allowed and what isn’t under various jurisdictions. Knowing these rules can help keep you from running into legal problems down the line and help protect yourself from getting blacklisted when doing web scrapping.
Conclusion
Web scraping is a technique to extract vast amounts of data from various websites. It involves collecting unorganized information and turning it into a structured format. Instead of manually gathering the data you need and creating a database, web scraping makes the process automatic, allowing you to automatically extract the information from a website in minutes.
A proxy is a mediator between your device and a website you’ve chosen for web scraping. Proxy servers use different IP addresses to make HTTP requests for web scraping to help you avoid a ban from a website or to speed up the process. With many different types of proxies that are better in other aspects, we suggest using a set of those specialized for web scraping activity.
Integrating proxies into web scraping software can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the scraping process. It allows the software to make requests through different IP addresses, making it more challenging for websites to detect and block the scraping activity.
Shadowrocket integration helps manage the proxies for iPhones and iPads through this utility application. It assists in many proxy management processes and makes web scraping go smoothly and efficiently.
