How to Bypass IP Blocking and CAPTCHAs in Web Scraping

You’ve built a perfect scraper, but after a few hundred requests, the website stops serving data. Instead, you face 403 Forbidden errors, IP bans, or aggressive CAPTCHAs.

Websites use these defenses to prevent high-frequency automated traffic from slowing down their servers. If your scraper behaves like a machine—sending requests too fast or from a single static IP—it will be flagged and blocked instantly.

The Solution: Humanizing Your Scraper

To scrape successfully at scale, you must mimic human behavior and distribute your request load. Here are the three most effective strategies:

1. Implement Proxy Rotation

Instead of using one IP address, use a pool of residential proxies. By rotating your IP for every request (or every few requests), the website sees traffic coming from many different users rather than one suspicious bot.

2. Use Headless Browsers with Stealth Plugins

Standard scrapers (like Python’s requests) don't render JavaScript, making them easy to spot. Use tools like Playwright or Selenium in headless mode.

Pro Tip: Use the stealth plugin to hide the specific browser fingerprints that tell a website "I am a bot."

3. Randomize Request Intervals (Throttling)

Don't send requests every 0.5 seconds like clockwork. Use a "jitter" technique to add random delays between actions.

import time
import random

# Instead of a fixed sleep, use a range
time.sleep(random.uniform(2, 5))