Why These Web Scraping Proxies Are the Best
Web scraping proxies must provide access to data, especially local data. We measured the best speeds and success rates of all these providers, but these rankings also reflect two major factors: how likely it is that the network will not be abused and how well it provides access to local information.
What Were the Criteria for the Best Proxy Service?
They Are Less Likely to Get Blocked When Data Scraping
First, when you want to use proxies for web scraping, you need to have a large base of unabused IP addresses. They need to hide your IP and not give away that you are using a proxy to access and scrape data. So, the best web scraping proxy network needs to have:
- Anonymous proxies that do not reveal themselves as proxies.
- Residential proxies that are extremely hard to detect because they look just like average users. We recommend to read more about best residential proxy providers.
Every provider in this list provides residential proxies that route scraping traffic anonymously. That means these proxy providers have the lowest possibility of being blocked.
They Let You Access Local Data
Next, you often need to scrape local data. In many countries, you can only access it with local IP addresses. These proxy providers let you target local proxies and access data in numerous countries or cities.
The only caveat – some proxy providers make it very expensive and difficult to get geographically precise proxies. We ranked providers that have the least hassle when you just want to use a local IP.
They Have Good Customer Service
Proxy setup and use can be technically challenging. The best proxy service will be easy to set up for any scraper. Proxy providers must have quick and professional customer support. We also evaluate whether providers have instructions for common tools.
How to Choose a Proxy for Web Scraping
When you are choosing a web scraping proxy server, you should first know what tool you will be using. Do you need proxies for ParseHub or Selenium? You should check whether the provider gives precise technical documentation for proxy setup with your tool.
If you wrote your own scraper that needs middleware or cannot use user:pass authentication, check if the provider lets you use any other alternatives. Top providers in this list allow scrapers to use proxies in various ways via extensions or whitelisted IP addresses.
Next, check whether the country or location you will be scraping is available. Again, the top providers in this list have almost any location on the planet, but others mostly focus on US proxies, which limits scraping capability.
You should always contact the provider and ask their support team about supporting your web scraper. Note which providers give you good technical consultations, because that means they have qualified people behind the wheel.
Why You Do Not Need Proxy Lists for Scraping
In the old scraping days, you would have a proxy list to burn through. Nowadays, scrapers can simply use a backconnect proxy network. It handles the listing of IP addresses, checks them in advance and then supplies you with a good proxy connection.
This approach makes sense when these networks have millions of IP addresses with thousands of proxies going up and down every second. On the other hand, you no longer need to use proxy lists for scraping, so it’s a win-win situation.
Most web scrapers that need proxy lists should be able to use backconnect connections to scrape with proxies.
Tips for Scraping with Proxies
Web scraping is not just about having an anonymous residential rotating proxy network. As websites try to lock down information and track users, there are a lot more methods that identify a client in addition to IP addresses. Here are some tips you should keep in mind before you set up a scraper with expensive proxies.
User Agents Are as Important for Scraping as Proxies
Every connection through a browser sends the server a unique user agent. User agents have a set of information about the device: its OS, browser signature, device type, etc.
When websites combine user agents, IP addresses and other data about a user, it is called device fingerprinting. If you change IPs but your data scraper always leaves the same fingerprint, your scrape will be detected and you might get into a honeypot.
How Not to Get Blocked When Scraping with a Proxy
Use a large list of user agents and device signatures with your scraper. You should also make sure that your crawler is capable of generating cookies from known websites: make it visit Facebook or eBay before scraping Amazon.
And never use direct links. Mimic real users that will use the site search, come to the site from search engines, wander through pages. This does burn a bit of traffic, but it makes scraping safer and less likely to be detected.
Scraping a Particular Site?
We have tested proxy providers for various target websites and used hundreds of concurrent connections and measured their speed and success rate. Proxyway made sure these are the best scraping proxies for those sites. To find out more, see our lists for:
- Best Proxies for Amazon Scraping
Frequently Asked Questions About Web Scraping Proxies
Why Do I Need Proxies for Scraping?
Proxies can help you avoid connection rate limits imposed by websites. If you try to scrape with your own IP, you’ll soon run into CAPTCHAs or even an outright IP block. Proxies can also help you access local data by changing your perceived location.
Can I Use Free Proxies for Web Scraping?
Yes and no. Free proxies might work for one-off scraping jobs against easy websites. But if you want to scrape consistently or at scale, you’ll need to go paid.
Should I Buy Residential or Datacenter Scraping Proxies?
Datacenter proxies are okay if you know what you’re doing or don’t need data from many locations. Residential proxies scale better, support more locales, are easier to detect and manage. You can try out both and see what works for you.