Using Proxies for Web Scraping: Everything You Need to Know

By using web scraping proxy solutions, you can collect data from multiple websites without having your connections blocked — all while following best practices for web scraping. In this article, we’ll explore everything you need to know about using proxies for web scraping, including the best proxy types, tips for avoiding IP blocks, best proxy providers and more. Let’s dive in!

Article’s Key Takeaways

• Why proxies for web scraping: Manually searching for large amounts of information on the web is not scalable. Using proxies for web scraping makes it seamless to trigger multiple connections from different locations to a given website. This approach is scalable and also makes it hard to have all of them blocked. By routing your traffic through different proxy IP addresses, the target website will view your connections as different users, further reducing chances of IP bans. 
• Proxy Types: The most common proxy types for data scraping include datacenter proxy, residential proxy, and mobile proxy solutions. Residential proxies for web scraping are the hardest to detect since they use IP addresses from real user devices. Decenter proxies are the fastest, but they are easier to detect compared to other proxy types. 
• Avoiding IP blocks: IP rotation is one of the most effective ways to avoid IP blocks when you use proxies. When using proxies with IP rotation, you can continue scraping public data even if some of your IPs are blocked. Remember, ProxyWing gives you access to millions of proxy IP addresses for web scraping in more than 190 countries. 

What Is a Proxy and Why It Matters for Web Scraping

A web scraping proxy is an intermediary server that sits between your device and the internet. When using a proxy, your device IP address is replaced by the proxy’s IP, making the connection more private and anonymous. Hiding your IP also means the websites being scraped will not know the real region where your scraping tools are connecting from. They will instead see the IP and location details of the proxy. 

Why it matters: 

• Avoid IP bans: When using proxies for web scraping, your real IP is hidden, preventing websites or web APIs from blocking your connection after too many requests. With proxy IP rotation, you can use several proxy IPs with the same scraping tools, making it even harder to experience IP bans. 
• Access geo-restricted content: Using proxies for web scraping lets you scrape data from websites in different regions by routing traffic through local proxy IPs. A web scraping tool collects data by crawling websites. But if a site is region-specific, using a web scraping proxy comes in handy
• Handle large-scale scraping: Web scraping proxies with rotating IPs distribute requests across multiple proxy IPs, making large web scraping projects more efficient.
• Maintain anonymity: Using proxies for web scraping when collecting information hides your identity, keeping your web scraping activities private and secure. 
• Improve scraping speed: Datacenter proxies or ISP proxies for web scraping offer high-speed connections for faster data collection. Data extraction services can benefit from the speeds offered by these proxies, especially when handling large data scraping projects. 

IP Protocol Versions Explained

The Internet Protocol (IP) is a major foundation of how devices connect to the internet. This defines how data is packaged, addressed, transmitted, and received across networks. There are two main versions in use today: IPv4 and IPv6. So, what’s the difference between these two protocols:

• IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4): This is the older and most widely used IP version. It uses a 32-bit address format, allowing for about 4.3 billion unique addresses. An example of an IPv4 address is: 192.168.1.1. However, with the rapid growth of internet-connected devices, IPv4 addresses are becoming scarce. That’s why IPv6 was invented. 
• IPv6: This new IP version was created to solve the limitations of IPv4, specifically the scarce number of IP addresses as the number of connected devices on the internet keeps growing. This protocol uses a 128-bit address format, providing an almost unlimited number of addresses. Here is an example of an IPv6 address: 2001:0db8:85a3::8a2e:0370:7334. For context, IPv6 provides about 79 octillion times more addresses than IPv4. Other benefits of IPv6 include built-in security features, simplified network configuration, and improved routing efficiency.

Even though most of the IP addresses used on the internet today are IPv4, we are starting to see several platforms, especially those in cloud environments, embrace the new IPv6 protocol. It won’t be long until it becomes the default standard. 

Proxy Protocols

At ProxyWing we offer web scraping proxies that use different protocols, making it possible to use them to send various kinds of traffic when scraping data. Some of the common data scraping proxy protocols ProxyWing supports include: 

HTTP Proxy

An HTTP web scraping proxy is designed to handle standard web traffic transmitted over the HTTP protocol. These web scraping proxies are primarily used for scraping websites and web applications. 

When you send a request through an HTTP proxy, the web scraping proxy forwards it to the target web server and returns the response. Using HTTP web scraping proxy solutions is only ideal when data encryption using SSL is not a priority. Using HTTP proxies when scraping sensitive data may not be the best approach from a security and privacy point of view. 

HTTPS Proxy

This proxy type is similar to HTTP web scraping proxies. The only difference is that requests sent using this proxy type are transmitted over an encrypted connection. So, a web scraping tool using HTTPS proxies extracts data more securely. The data sent between the scraping tool and the proxy servers is encrypted, ensuring more privacy. This makes HTTPS web scraping proxies the ideal choice when scrapping sensitive data. 

SOCKS Proxy (SOCKS4 / SOCKS5)

The SOCKS protocol operates at a lower level than HTTP and HTTPS. That means proxies using this protocol can handle any type of internet traffic, including HTTP, TCP, and UDP traffic securely. The latest version of this protocol is SOCKS5—it supports all kinds of traffic, including the ones listed above. 

By default, SOCKS5 web scraping proxies do not encrypt data—this can be beneficial for performance, but may not be the most private approach. The good news is that these web scraping proxies can be paired with encryption tools like SSH if more privacy is required. 

Main Proxy Types for Web Scraping

There are several types of proxies for web scraping. Some of the common types of proxies for web scraping that you will likely use include the following: 

Datacenter Proxies

With this web scraping proxy type, the connection from your web scraping tools is routed through a proxy server in a datacenter. That means the connection reaching the target website or web application will only view the IP address of the datacenter proxy server. 

Datacenter proxies for web scraping are the most common and affordable type of proxies. These proxies are also the fastest, offer low latency, and unlimited bandwidth, which can be crucial when web scraping. The only downside with datacenter proxies is that they are the easiest to detect compared to other proxy types. 

Residential Proxies

Residential web scraping proxies route your traffic through IP addresses assigned to devices of real homeowners by ISPs. Some examples of such proxy devices include computers, routers, and more. As stated earlier, residential proxies for web scraping are the hardest to detect since they rely on IP addresses of real user devices. 

If you want to minimize the chances of getting blocked when web scraping, residential web scraping proxies should be your choice. However, these proxies may not be as fast and will cost you slightly more than datacenter proxies, especially for large scale web scraping 

Static Residential (ISP) Proxies

Static residential proxies for web scraping route your traffic through the IP addresses of proxy servers in ISP-managed datacenters. These proxies combine the speed of datacenter proxies with the trustworthiness of residential proxies. 

Since the IPs of these proxy servers are ISP-assigned, websites trust them more, minimizing the chances of getting blocked when using scraping software to collect public data. Even though ISP proxies are more expensive than datacenter proxies for web scraping, they still cost less than mobile and residential proxies.

Mobile Proxies

With mobile proxies, the connection from your web scraping tools is routed through the IP address of mobile devices connected to 3G, 4G, or 5G mobile networks. The IP addresses of these devices are ISP-assigned, minimizing the chances of IP bans. Most websites are also designed to trust mobile traffic, making this proxy type a great option for web scraping, especially on mobile-first platforms. 

Other Proxy Types for  web scraping

Besides the four major proxy types we have discussed above, there are several other proxy categories for  web scraping that you may need to know about. Some of these proxy types include: 

• Rotating Proxies: These proxies for web scraping dynamically switch IPs for every request to avoid detection or rate limits. Rotating proxies allow your automated tools for web scraping to get access without facing frequent IP bans . 
• Shared Proxies vs. Dedicated Proxies: With shared proxies, several users are sharing the same IP address, On the other hand, dedicated proxies assign each user (web scraping tool) a unique IP, making them safer and faster.
• Transparent Proxies: With transparent proxies for web scraping, the traffic of your web crawling tools may be routed through the proxy server, but they don’t replace or hide your device IP. These proxies are mainly used for caching or monitoring, but not ideal for web scraping tasks. Transparent proxies are also usually managed by ISPs or an organization that needs to monitor the traffic of its users. 

How to Rotate Proxies for Web Scraping

One of the hidden gems when using proxies is enabling proxy rotation. Proxy rotation involves rotating IPs per request or after a given period of time within a session. This makes it appear like traffic is coming from different devices, which minimizes the risk of facing IP bans. When web scraping with proxies, developers have to write scripts or use existing software that can automatically switch IPs per request to minimize the possibility of getting blocked. 

Why IP Rotation Is Important

As stated earlier, Using proxies with IP rotation is very crucial for bypassing IP bans. Remember data scrapers work by sending multiple requests to the target website. However, most websites monitor incoming traffic and can detect unusual user behavior such as making hundreds of requests within a short period, which is common during web scraping. 

When such behavior is detected, the website could flag that connection as a bot and ultimately block it. By using proxies with IP rotation, each request comes with a different IP, making it harder for the websites to detect any web scraping behavior.

Manual vs. Automated Rotation

For your web scraping projects, you can use manual or automated processes, depending on your web scraping goals and the proxy tools you have at hand: 

• Manual Proxy IP Rotation: With manual rotation, you will need to change the proxies yourself, by either changing IPs in your script or updating configuration files. Manual rotation is only ideal for small web scraping projects. However, it is not a scalable approach for businesses that need to scrap huge amounts of data. The best use cases for manual proxy rotation include trial projects or relatively small web scraping projects. 
• Automated Proxy IP Rotation: Just like the name suggests, automated proxy IP rotation involves dynamically changing the IP address your script or software is using to connect to the target website. ProxyWing offers you the software tools you need to automatically change your IP per request. However, you may also choose to write your web scraping script using python depending on your task. Automated rotation is the most realistic approach, especially for large web scraping projects. 

How to Rotate Proxies in Python

If you need more control when rotating your proxy IPs, you can use python to write a custom script that automatically enables your data extraction tools to connect with a different IP per request. Below is an example of a simple python script for dynamically changing IPs. 

import requests
import random
# List of proxy addresses
proxies = [
    "http://123.45.67.89:8080",
    "http://98.76.54.32:8000",
    "http://45.77.12.34:3128"
]
# Target website
url = "https://example.com"
# Rotate proxies for each request
for i in range(5):
    proxy = {"http": random.choice(proxies), "https": random.choice(proxies)}
    response = requests.get(url, proxies=proxy)
    print(f"Request {i+1} - Status Code: {response.status_code}")

This is a simple script that you can make more robust if you need to. For instance, you could use other IP rotation python library options like ip_rotator or Swiftshadow to create more sophisticated workflows for web scraping. Several other specialized developer tools can be used to make the web scraping process even more efficient. 

How to Avoid IP Blocks While Scraping

As you may already know, IP blocks are the primary reason for using proxies when web scraping. However, you may also have to implement more strategies if you need to collect data without having your connections blocked by websites. Here are some tips to void IP blocks: 

• Throttle your requests: Even when using automated tools for web scraping, consider adding some random delays between requests to simulate human browsing. Most tools for web scraping support this option. 
• Rotate user agents: Using different browser headers together with IP rotation makes your requests unique and to seem like they are coming from different users. 
• Use rotating proxies: This should be the first thing you do for effective web scraping. Switching proxy IPs is a tested method for bypassing web scraping blockers. 
• Avoid scraping protected endpoints: This can include webpages that require signing in or checking out before proceeding. 
• Respect robots.txt: Most websites have the robots.txt file that shows the pages that web crawlers, including your web scraping tools can access. Make sure your web scraping tools respect these policies even when using proxies.

Bandwidth and Budget Considerations

Your budget and bandwidth are two of the main factors that you must consider when choosing and configuring your proxies. Proxy providers may bill you based on your bandwidth needs, with higher bandwidth requiring bigger budgets. 

For instance, when scraping dynamic websites with dynamic content such as high resolution images, more bandwidth might be required than sites with simple html content. 

To optimize bandwidth and stay within budget:

• Filter your requests to ensure your web scraping tool extracts specific data.
• Cache results locally to avoid re-downloading the same pages.
• Use headless browsers selectively since they consume more data than simple HTTP requests.
• Consider compressing responses whenever possible
• Structuring data after collection can also speed up the data processing and analytics stages. 

Scraping Dynamic Websites With Headless Browsers

Most of the modern websites that you will scrape use JavaScript to load content dynamically. That means the data may not appear in the initial HTML but is rendered in the browser after scripts execute. 

Traditional web scrapers can’t handle this, which is why using headless browsers might be necessary. Using web scraping tools like Puppeteer, Playwright, and Selenium simulates a real browser environment, which allows loading pages fully to extract dynamic elements such as changing product prices when collecting data from e-commerce sites. 

Common Proxy Issues and How to Fix Them

Let’s discuss some common issues you may face when web scraping with proxies and how to resolve them. 

• Connection Timeouts: This proxy issue occurs when your proxy server doesn’t respond in a specific time period. You can resolve this by switching to a lower-latency proxy or adjusting the timeout settings of the web scraping tool. 
• Authentication Errors: This happens when your proxy credentials are not correct. Always double check these credentials and make sure they match with what was provided when purchasing the proxy service. You can also contact your proxy provider for help. 
• Low success rate: This happens if most of your requests return errors of CAPTCHAs. You can fix this by using IP rotation, randomizing headers, or using mobile and residential proxies when scraping very strict websites. 

Choosing the Right Proxy Provider for Web Scraping

Key factors to consider when choosing proxy provider for web scraping include: 

• Location Coverage: Ensure the proxy provider has IPs in all the regions you need to target. ProxyWing offers proxy IPs in more than 190 countries. 
• Rotation System: Your proxy provider needs to support IP rotation. Automating IP rotation is especially crucial for large web scraping projects.  
• Uptime and Speed: The proxy uptime should be at least 99% with low latency.
• Customer Support: Make sure your proxy provider’s support is responsive and available 24/7. 
• Proxy pricing: There should be a right balance between the price and proxy features offered. 

Best Proxy Providers for Web Scraping in 2025

When web scraping, the proxy provider you choose will have a huge impact on the overall experience. Make sure the proxy provider’s IP sources are legitimate and that they comply with GDPR and other data privacy laws. Some of the top-rated proxy providers in 2025 include Bright Data (Luminati), Oxylabs, Smartproxy, and SOAX. 

However, ProxyWing comes out on top when you consider the pricing and the features you get. ProxyWing gives you access to millions of IP in over 190 countries, 24/7 support, IP rotation for all proxy types, more than 99% proxy uptime, unlimited proxy speeds, and support for both HTTP and SOCKS5 support. Check out ProxyWing’s proxies for web scraping that start from as low as $1.05/month. 

Summary

Using proxies for web scraping is one of the most reliable ways to crawl websites and collect the data you need without getting blocked. An automated web scraping tool helps businesses and researchers to gather large amounts of data that would otherwise be difficult to collect manually. More advanced proxy tools available today support automatic IP rotation, which is essential for avoiding IP bans. 

We hope you have learnt all the key steps you need to take to ensure efficient web scraping using proxies. If you need web scraping proxies with all the key features to collect data efficiently without blowing up your budget, ProxyWing is the go-to choice.