We live in days where the importance of data is increasing day by day. In fact, we are in a new era that has emerged with technology. Data age. Today, many applications, projects, and businesses need data to be able to come to life. Companies can use this data for testing purposes or in a live environment.
There are many ways companies can obtain data. Like generating data, entering data, and purchasing data. However, apart from all these ways, a very easy method in terms of both time and cost is popularly preferred. web scraping. Let’s take a look at what this web scraping is.
What is Web Scraping
Web scraping is the process that forms the heart of many businesses and applications today. Data. With web scraping, businesses can obtain the data they need from target websites with help. These web scraping bots or tools are the same as when a user accesses the target website and obtains data. The only difference is that this process is faster and automated with web scraping bots.
It is very important that web scraping tools work efficiently and automatically. For many businesses, the regular flow of data from their target website to their own database is essential. Disruption of the automated web scraping process is unacceptable. In this regard, web scraping tools have a very important job.
There are many web scraping tools available today. These tools are in a fierce battle with each other. Zenscrape is quite popular in this regard, serving over 10,000 customers. Thanks to its technical infrastructure, it works faster than its competitors. In addition, the accuracy of the data provided is quite high. Zenscrape also provides very flexible and affordable packages, including the free package.
Zenscrape provides free proxy support in order to facilitate the automation of web scraping API processes. In addition, it automatically changes the proxy so that there is no block in the automated processes. So what is this proxy, let’s take a look at it.
What is Proxy
A proxy is a kind of intermediary between a web user and an online resource. When you visit a website directly, you send a web request with information about yourself (the server or computer you use, your location, browser fingerprints, IP address, etc.). In response to this sent data, the web resource provides you with the content you requested.
Unlike a direct connection between users and websites, a proxy-based connection provides a gateway for your web request and the data you get back from the website. Proxies can hide or modify your web request data and filter website content preventing you from receiving unwanted information. This also enables anonymous web browsing and data collection by you.
What are Proxy Features
A proxy server acts as a gateway between you and the internet, ensuring that your browser is not in direct contact with the sites you visit, which can help strengthen your security and the security of your local network. However, a proxy server has other uses and can offer more than just security protection against hackers.
Some other useful features of proxy servers are as follows:
- You can restrict access to certain websites.
- You can connect multiple devices under a single network.
- You can increase browsing speeds by saving copies of websites.
Why Proxy is Important in Web Scraping
When people enter websites, they access these websites with an IP address. Developers on the website can observe these IP addresses and monitor the traffic. Web scraping tools also access and scrape websites using IP addresses.
Making too many requests to websites over a single IP address will result in traffic. When this traffic is noticed by the teams examining the traffic on the website, they may conclude that there may be an attack. That’s why they block IP addresses that generate a lot of traffic. Proxies are the easiest way to manage this web scraping traffic. Proxies can be used to distribute requests and scrape anonymously.
Benefits of Proxy in Web Scraping
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Scraping protecting your credentials
Thanks to the proxy configuration, you can hide device identities and obtain data anonymously.
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Preventing blocks with IP rotation
Many websites use tools to block web scraping tools by monitoring traffic or recognizing IP addresses. Web scraping tools use a proxy pool to send traffic through multiple IP addresses so they don’t get stuck.
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Obtaining data specific to specific locations
Some websites only serve visitors in their own locations. When you want to scrape data on websites that provide location-based services, you can do web scraping in a healthy way by configuring location-specific proxies.
Conclusion
Businesses use proxies for web scraping to gain a competitive advantage. If you want to collect information from many places without any hindrance or interruption with the web scraping tool, proxy servers can help you.
Take a look at how easy it is to automatically scrape data from target websites using the many conveniences that Zenscrape provides, such as the large proxy pool and automatic IP change.
