Rotating proxies for web scraping

IP-based blocking is the oldest anti-scraping defense and still one of the most common. A site can count requests from an IP address, compare that IP against reputation databases, block entire hosting ranges, or show CAPTCHA when traffic from one source looks too automated. Rotating proxies spread requests across multiple IP addresses. Used well, they reduce the pressure on any single IP and let a scraper operate closer to normal browsing patterns. Used badly, they create an even stronger bot signal: thousands of requests from mismatched, low-quality, or constantly changing identities.
What a proxy changes
A proxy sits between the scraper and the target website. The website sees the proxy’s IP address instead of the operator’s direct connection. That helps with several scraping problems:
Rate limits. Requests can be distributed instead of concentrated on one IP.
IP bans. A blocked IP can be removed from the pool.
Geo restrictions. A task can use an IP from the region where the content is available.
Operational privacy. The operator’s local IP is not exposed to every target site.
Cloud parallelism. Subtasks can run through separate network paths instead of competing through one address.
Proxies do not fix bad selectors, broken pagination, or obvious browser automation. They are one layer of the scaling stack, not a complete anti-bot strategy.
Types of proxies
Datacenter proxies
Datacenter proxies come from hosting providers and cloud infrastructure. They are fast, cheap, and easy to buy in large quantities. They work well for lightly protected sites, public directories, and targets that mainly care about request volume. They perform poorly on sites that block known hosting ranges or expect consumer traffic.
Residential proxies
Residential proxies route traffic through IPs associated with consumer internet providers. They look more like normal user traffic and are often more successful on e-commerce, search, travel, and other protected sites. The trade-off is cost and ethics. Use providers that can explain how their IP pool is sourced and whether users have consented. A low-quality residential pool can create legal, privacy, and reliability problems.
ISP proxies
ISP proxies sit between datacenter and residential. They are hosted like datacenter proxies but registered with internet service providers. They are usually more stable than rotating residential IPs and less suspicious than ordinary datacenter ranges. They are useful when a scraper needs sticky sessions, stable geography, and better reputation than a cloud hosting IP.
Mobile proxies
Mobile proxies route through carrier networks. They can be highly trusted because many real mobile users share carrier-grade NAT IPs. They are also expensive and often overkill. Use mobile proxies only when the target site is mobile-first or when other proxy types consistently fail.
Rotation strategies
Proxy rotation is not always “new IP on every request.” The right strategy depends on the site and the workflow.
Per-request rotation
Each request uses a different IP. This can work for stateless pages such as public search result pages or simple product listing pages. It is risky for sessions that rely on cookies, carts, login state, or region consistency. Switching IPs too often can look suspicious.
Sticky sessions
A worker keeps the same IP for a period of time or for the life of a session. This is usually better for JavaScript-heavy sites, logged-in areas, pagination flows, and any task where the website expects continuity. For example, a scraper might keep one IP while it searches, opens several result pages, and extracts details, then rotate before starting the next keyword or category.
Task-level rotation
Each subtask receives its own proxy identity. One category, city, keyword, or URL batch runs through one IP or one small pool. This aligns well with cloud extraction because subtasks are already natural boundaries for parallelism.
Geo-targeted rotation
The proxy region is selected intentionally. A job collecting US prices should use US IPs; a job comparing availability across countries should split work by region. The browser timezone and language should match the chosen geography.
Matching proxies to use cases
Use caseProxy approach
Public static pages
No proxy or datacenter proxy with conservative rate limits
Large product catalog
Rotating datacenter or residential proxies, depending on defenses
Search engines or marketplaces
Residential or ISP proxies with sticky sessions and fingerprint coherence
Logged-in dashboards
Stable IP per account; avoid aggressive rotation
Geo-specific prices or availability
Country or region-targeted proxies
Mobile-only content
Mobile proxies, only when truly necessary
The key is to match the network identity to the browsing story. A rotating proxy pool works best when the browser fingerprint, language, timezone, request pace, and session behavior all agree with the IP being used.
Common mistakes
Rotating too often. A new IP on every click can look less human, not more.
Ignoring IP quality. Cheap blocked IPs can increase CAPTCHA frequency.
Mixing geography. A German IP with a US timezone and Japanese language headers is a mismatch.
Changing IP during login. Logged-in sessions should usually stay sticky.
Scaling too fast. More proxies do not make an overloaded target safer to scrape.
Treating proxies as legality. A proxy changes network routing; it does not change permission, terms of service, privacy obligations, or robots.txt considerations.
How visual platforms handle it
Integrated scraping platforms often make proxy rotation part of task settings rather than custom infrastructure. Octoparse, for example, documents IP rotation for cloud runs, built-in residential proxies for local and cloud workflows, and user-provided HTTP proxies for local runs. Its cloud extraction model can split a task into subtasks that run across multiple cloud nodes, so traffic is not concentrated behind one local IP. The broader principle is what matters: proxy configuration should live next to the task’s execution strategy. A scraper that splits work into subtasks, schedules runs, manages browser sessions, and rotates network paths in one place is easier to operate than a scraper where every layer is wired separately.
Practical rule
Use the weakest proxy strategy that works. Start with normal pacing and no proxy for low-risk targets. Add datacenter proxies when volume is the only issue. Move to residential or ISP proxies when reputation matters. Use sticky sessions whenever the website expects continuity. Reserve mobile proxies and aggressive rotation for cases that truly justify their cost and complexity.


Human-like scraping

A scraper that runs in a real, headed browser with a managed fingerprint has handled the “what does this session look like” layer of anti-bot detection. But that only gets the scraper past the front door. Modern anti-bot systems also watch what the visitor does once inside: how the mouse moves, where it clicks, how fast it types, whether it scrolls before reading, whether it spends time on the page or jumps straight to the data. Looking human is the layer above identity, and many otherwise-clean scrapers get caught here.
What machines do that humans don’t
The behavioral tells are predictable and well-profiled in the anti-bot world:
Mouse moves in straight lines. A real user’s cursor curves, jitters, overshoots, and corrects. A bot’s typically interpolates a straight path from A to B.
Clicks land on exact center pixels. A human aims at a button — they don’t hit dead-center every time. Pixel-perfect clicks are a giveaway.
Timing is constant. sleep(2) between every action looks like exactly what it is. Real users vary, sometimes a lot.
No scrolling, no dwell. A bot fetches what it needs and leaves. A human scrolls past, looks around, hesitates, sometimes scrolls back.
Navigation is too efficient. A bot follows the shortest path to the data. A human wanders — clicks a wrong link, hits back, browses adjacent pages.
Together these form a behavioral fingerprint that some anti-bot vendors profile as aggressively as the technical fingerprint.
Designing human-like behavior
The standard remedies map one-to-one to the tells above:
Mouse trajectories. Replace linear moveTo calls with Bézier or noise-perturbed paths that arc, jitter, and occasionally overshoot.
Click offset. Click slightly off-center within the target element’s bounding box — a small randomized offset, not the geometric center every time.
Timing distributions. Replace constant sleeps with samples from a distribution (log-normal works well) so action intervals look organic rather than rhythmic.
Scroll and dwell. Insert scroll events with pauses; let some time pass on a page even when the data you want is already in the DOM.
Imperfect navigation. Occasionally click a non-target link, then back-navigate; visit a few peer pages before the one you came for.
None of these are individually decisive — combined, they shift the behavioral signature from “bot” to “ambiguous-or-human.”
How Octoparse approaches it
Octoparse simulates real browsing operations as part of its task execution — the mouse follows curved trajectories rather than linear paths, clicks land at randomized offsets within the target element rather than dead-center, and action timing varies rather than firing at constant intervals. These patterns shed the machine-like signature that anti-bot systems profile, without the operator having to script the variation manually. Behavioral simulation pairs with Octoparse’s active fingerprint management — the runtime looks like a different real user each session, and once on the page it acts like one.
When it matters, when it doesn’t
Behavioral stealth has a real cost — engineering, configuration, sometimes throughput. Pay selectively:
Light defenses (static or weakly defended sites). Skip it. A clean headed browser is enough; spend the effort elsewhere.
Medium defenses (rate limiting + basic bot detection). Do the behavioral pieces — timing distributions, scroll, mouse curves.
Heavy defenses (Cloudflare, DataDome, HUMAN, Akamai Bot Manager). Required. Without realistic behavior you’re paying for full browser rendering and still getting blocked.
The decision rule: match the stealth investment to what the target site actually does. Overshooting is wasted work; undershooting wastes everything. For the fingerprint companion to behavioral stealth, see Browser fingerprinting. For the specific defense systems this addresses, see Bypassing CAPTCHA and Cloudflare. For the network-layer companion, see Rotating proxies.