Web scraping tools are fantastic solutions for extracting relevant website data for better business decisions. Market research, competitive and sentiment analysis, price optimization, brand monitoring, and ad verification are only some activities requiring accurate, up-to-date data.
Proxies are your go-to tools to gather the necessary information. You might have already used them, but have you tried mobile proxy services? They’re a foolproof solution to web scraping.
If you’re dipping your toes in web scraping with proxies, check out how they work and why mobile solutions reign supreme.
What are proxies?
Proxies are server applications that route website traffic between clients and servers. When you visit a website, your web browser is a client requesting access to specific content. The server hosting the site receives the HTTP request and sends an HTTP response with the content.
What if the server doesn’t allow website access due to geo-restrictions, too many HTTP requests in a short interval, or another problem like a failed CAPTCHA test? Your browser gets a status message without the requested content.
That’s where proxies come into play. They redirect the traffic through their servers, sending HTTP requests from their IP address pool, masking yours. That way, you can access any content, without actually worrying to get a masquerade mask from a shop online here.
How do mobile proxies differ from regular proxies?
Some proxies use residential IP addresses from ISPs (Internet Service Providers), and others use computer-generated IP addresses from data centers.
Mobile proxies use IP addresses available from mobile network carriers. Routing traffic through cellular networks makes desktop and laptop computers appear like smartphones and tablets when browsing websites, shielding their ISP-assigned IP addresses.
Scraping the web using a mobile IP address provides several benefits. Before exploring them, let’s see what mobile proxy types you can use.
Types of mobile proxies
You can choose from three mobile proxy types:
- 3G – Most mobile network operators have phased out 3G services, although some underdeveloped countries and rural areas still use them. That’s why few providers offer 3G proxies. Still, we don’t recommend them because they’re less reliable and slower than newer versions.
- 4G – The fourth-generation mobile network technology is the most prevalent, making a 4G proxy your best friend for web scraping. It uses mobile IP addresses from 4G devices, providing reliable connections 5–7 faster than 3G.
- 5G – The fifth generation of cellular technology is the latest standard, offering lightning-fast internet speeds (up to 100 times faster than 4G). However, its limited availability makes 5G proxies scarce and more expensive. Most devices still use 4G, so a 4G proxy is your best bet.
Regardless of your chosen mobile proxy, you’ll enjoy more benefits than you would when scraping the web with traditional proxies.
Benefits of mobile proxies
Here’s why mobile proxies are a foolproof solution for web scraping.
Faster and more reliable connection
Mobile tech advancements have made internet connections over cellular networks faster than those on computers. Traditional proxies routing your traffic through residential IP addresses can’t compare to their mobile counterparts regarding the connection speed.
Using a mobile proxy, you can extract the same website data faster over a more reliable connection.
No IP blocks
IP blocks won’t be the bane of your existence if you use a trustworthy proxy like ScraperAPI, a proxy API for web scraping, that rotates IP addresses for every HTTP request or after a specific interval. That ensures human-like web scraping because websites identify your bot as an authentic user.
However, mobile proxies take this benefit to another level. Network carriers use the CGNAT (Carrier-Grade Network Address Translation) technology to address the IPv4 address exhaustion issue, allowing multiple users to share one public IP address.
That makes mobile proxies the least likely to get an IP ban. When website administrations detect your mobile IP address, they may not block it because they could restrict access to hundreds or thousands of users.
Bypassing CAPTCHA tests
CAPTCHA tests are among the most prevalent anti-scraping mechanisms. Traditional proxies can bypass them by rotating IP addresses, but their mobile counterparts are even better.
Since mobile proxies are nearly impossible to detect, websites are unlikely to display CAPTCHAs because they associate mobile IP addresses with authentic users.
The same goes for other anti-bot techniques like honeypot traps and login requirements. You can send multiple concurrent HTTP requests to extract data without website admins stopping you.
Conclusion
Mobile proxies are new-and-improved server applications for providing a secure gateway between your web browser and target websites’ hosting servers. They can take your web scraping to the next level, helping you extract relevant data quickly.
Besides a speedy and reliable connection, you can enjoy uninterrupted scraping sessions simulating human-like behavior. You can say goodbye to IP blocks, CAPTCHAs, and other anti-bot measures.
Choose a reliable 4G proxy provider because 5G technology isn’t widespread yet. You’ll have more mobile IP addresses to rotate and avoid detection.
