Data harnesses amazing power, which is why there is so much attention on how businesses can make the most of the structured and unstructured data they collect. The quality and completeness of that data play a key role in leveraging its potential.
This is where data harvesting enters the picture. When companies are not properly armed with effective collection tools, they risk acquiring bad data or suffering from the inability to pull the data they need. A primary cause of less than ideal results occurs when a target site blocks your access or spoofs the information returned to you based on your IP address. This can happen for a number of reasons.
For example, repetitively hitting a target website using a single IP address within a small time period is begging for trouble. Address this issue by leveraging Ion’s tens of thousands of IP addresses and spreading your traffic over multiple IPs from multiple IP blocks of all sizes.
Similarly, navigating pages within a target website while changing the IP too frequently can also cause issues. This usually happens when drilling down within a site for deeper discovery purposes. The solution here is to hold a constant IP address throughout the deep dive session. Rotation of the IP address should take place at the start of each new session, maintaining the correct balance of consistency and anonymity.
Furthermore, not following a “human-like” browsing pattern, including the speed of clicks or the use of outdated user agent strings, can draw unwanted attention. Just because your scraping tool or script allows you to collect millions of data points in one hour or less doesn’t mean you should. Take the time to spread out your scraping across the hours of a normal business day, similar to how a person would review a website from a desktop browser.
Fortunately, it’s possible to overcome these roadblocks. Ion by Anonymizer takes care of the IP-related issues for you and easily integrates with commercial web scraping tools and custom scripts. Ion allows you to concentrate on simply gathering the data needed for your business, removing the worry of being blocked or throttled by a target website. Ntrepid’s patented IP rotation technology gives you the access and control you need, all while providing you with a pool of continuously refreshed non-attributable IPs. Ion gives you the power to collect the data your business needs.