Some commonly used Practices and Approaches to bypass website block in Web Scraping
With over a decade of experience in the field of web scraping and data mining of all kind of data from thousands of websites out there, Scraping Solution has written down some major techniques, tools and services websites use to block IP address or restrict your entry to the webpage if they find any bot activity or scraping on their websites.
- User-Agent Detection
- IP Address Tracking
- CAPTCHA
- Rate Limiting
- CloudFlare
- HTTP Headers Inspection
- IP Reputation Databases
- Fingerprinting
- SSL Fingerprinting
- Behavioral Biometrics
- Advanced CAPTCHA
There are some known techniques that websites use to detect bot activity. Some of these are easy to bypass while others are hard. With AI coming into the IT sectors new techniques are getting into the market which analyzes the behavior of the request made to the website and these are most effective in blocking the scrapers and are almost impossible to dodge.
In the article below we have discussed each blocking system mentioned above with some possible hacks or techniques to bypass these kinds of blocks:
User-Agent Detection: Old days were good days when you just face ‘user-agent detection’ blocking service and just by rotating user-agents with each request,you can present yourself as a different type of browser or device with each request, making it more difficult for the website to detect that you are scraping its data.
IP Address Tracking: Using a VPN or proxy rotation service to send your requests with temporary ip address can help you hide your real IP address and avoid being detected or blocked by the website. This technique stills works for 90% of the website but you need to make sure that the ip proxies you are rotating are up and fast (only use credible service provider).
Rate Limiting: Adding a random delay between requests using time.sleep() in Python can help you avoid being detected as a scraper if the website has rate-limiting measures in place. Limiting your rate by adding random delays also feels more like human user rather than a bot action.
HTTP Headers Inspection: By rotating the headers for each request, you can avoid having a consistent pattern of header information that could be used to identify you as a scraper. You can also inspect the headers used by your browser when you manually access the website and use those headers in your scraping requests.
Fingerprinting: By changing the headers for different devices and user-agents, you can avoid being detected through fingerprinting, which uses information about the device and browser being used to identify the user. You can also refresh the cookies and if the website still blocks you can try changing the ip address too. In fingerprinting you can play with all the options you got.
SSL Fingerprinting: To go one step further and to avoid SSL fingerprinting detection, web scrapers may use techniques like rotating SSL certificates, using a VPN, or using a proxy service that hides their real IP address.
Behavioural Biometrics: Getting avoided by Behavioral biometrics is tricky,however, we can avoid it by generating less data for behavioral biometrics. Using headless browser, randomizing mouse movements, scrolling on website etc.
Cloudflare: Method of using Selenium to bypass Cloudflare is indeed one of the simplest ways to do so most of the time, but it is not efficient or reliable. It’s slow and can affect the memory of the your system, and it’s also considered a deprecated technique. It’s recommended to use other methods, such as IP rotation or proxy servers, to bypass Cloudflare.Doing above mentioned exercise may not get you through the Cloudflare as it has different levels of detections from basic to advance. A website with advance level of Cloudflare might not get you though it even if you try everything above and doing regular scrapes of such websites is simply not practical.
CAPTCHA: There are third-party services available that can solve CAPTCHAs for you, allowing you to continue scraping without interruptions. However, this is an additional cost and may not be a reliable solution in the long-term. Use a VPN or proxy service: A VPN or proxy service can sometimes help to bypass CAPTCHAs by making it appear as if the request is coming from a different location. However, manually solve the CAPTCHA and use the headers from the manual request: This involves manually solving the CAPTCHA and then using the headers from the successful manual request in future scraping requests. This can help to reduce the number of CAPTCHA interruptions but requires manual intervention. Rotate headers every time a CAPTCHA shows up: This involves rotating the headers used in your scraping requests every time a CAPTCHA is encountered. This can help to bypass the CAPTCHA but requires additional work to manage the headers.
It’s important to note that these techniques are not foolproof, and websites can still use other techniques to detect and block scrapers. However, implementing these techniques mentioned above can help to reduce the risk of encountering CAPTCHAs and make it more difficult for a website to detect and block your scraping activities.
Note from Author:
Scraping solution also provide consultation in Web scraping and Web development to companies in UK, USA and around the globe. Feel free to ask any question here or contact me through the given means of contact.