More and more organizations are now leveraging the web scraping approach to take their business to another level. This process involves gathering data from public sources and transforming it into a structured format for further analysis. This increase in reliance on web scraping has made many website administrators implement different levels of bot detection systems to mitigate fraudulent bot activities.
Due to this, it has become quite challenging for good bots to collect data from the targeted websites. To help you get around these systems, we’ll mention some common methods after covering the main bot detection techniques.
Main Bot Detection Techniques
Detecting bots is an unending cat-and-mouse game since bot operators continually look for ways to get around bot detection methods. In this section, we’ll briefly cover the most advanced bot detection techniques:
TLS Fingerprinting
Transport Layer Security (TLS) fingerprinting is a server-side fingerprinting method that enables servers to assess a client’s identity using the initial packet connection before any data transfer occurs. This technique allows servers to learn about the client trying to initiate a conversation and then decide whether to allow the request.
HTTP/2 Fingerprinting
HTTP/2 fingerprinting is a technique by which servers can identify which client sends the request to them. It relies on the internals of the HTTP/2 protocol to identify the browser type and version or whether a script is used.
Basically, it observes the behavior of the client when the connection is established to determine if it’s a real user or a bot. The fingerprinting solution collects data on primary connection settings, stream priorities, flow control, and pseudo-header, removing the things from that.
Behavior Analysis
The behavior-based approach for bot detection analyzes and compares the client’s behaviors to a set benchmark and to legitimate human behavior. It monitors different types of behavior, including mouse movements, mouse clicks, keypress, scroll consistency and speed, average dwell time per page, and the number of requests per session.
Web Application Firewalls (WAF)
WAFs help protect websites from attacks, like session hijacking, cross-site scripting (XSS), and SQL injections, depending on a set of rules. These rules are set to filter out bots from original users. WAFs actually look for requests carrying familiar attack signatures.
IP Analysis
Another approach is to check for known malicious IPs or browsing patterns associated with bots. Site administrators examine the IP addresses associated with user interactions to identify known bot addresses. This can lead to IP blocks or bans.
Ideal Methods to Overcome Bot Detection Techniques
After learning different techniques that website administrators use to detect bot activities, it is time to find out how you can get around these techniques.
Use Residential Proxy Servers
Residential proxies are a type of proxy server that assign users with residential IPs directly linked to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and associated with residential areas in different locations.
Those who buy residential proxy servers can get two types of proxies: static and rotating. Static proxy assigns one residential address to be used for a long period of time, whereas rotating proxies assign users with a different address from the proxy pool every single time.
If you buy residential proxy servers, you can make it appear as if the requests are coming through the proxies, not the client’s device. As a result, the responding server will not be able to draw a pattern for behavioral analysis.
Beware of Honeypot Traps
The honeypot trap is a security measure used to attract and trap web crawlers. It basically creates web pages and links, which are invisible to organic users but not to scrapers. When your request gets blocked, and the scraper gets detected, there are chances that your target site might be using honeypot traps.
Go for IP Rotation
Another common method of bypassing anti-scraping measures is by rotating IPs. Sending many requests from the same address makes the target site see you as a threat and block your IP. Proxy rotation makes you appear as many different users, which reduces your chances of getting banned.
Choose Headless Browsers
A headless browser is a web browser with no graphical user interface (GUI). It is designed to provide automated control of a web page in an environment like that of famous web browsers. Also, it allows for retrieving data that loads by rendering JavaScript elements.
Browse Differently
Last but not least, mimic human behavior while scraping to overcome bot detection techniques.
This includes visiting the home page of a website first before opening other links. Set random intervals to send requests. Also, make scrolls, clicks, and mouse movements randomly to make it seem less predictable.
Quick Summary
Since web scraping is widespread among businesses to collect valuable data and make well-informed decisions, many website administrators have started implementing bot detection measures to prevent data retrieval. But by following the above-mentioned techniques, you can bypass even complex anti-bot systems and gain access to useful public data.
