How To Rotate Proxies In Python

You can access the pages with different IP addresses when you collect heavy data from various websites. It is possible to use rotating proxies between your computer and the websites you target. These proxies cyclically change the IP addresses from the proxy pool and assign your computer a new IP address every time you send

Table of Contents

• Why Do You Need To Rotate Proxies?
• How To Rotate Proxies In Python Install requestsCreate sending_request functionRead proxies_txtCreate Session
• Install requests
• Create sending_request function
• Read proxies_txt
• Create Session
• Features of Rotating Proxies
• Potential Benefits of Rotating Proxies The pool of IP AddressesBetter Performance and Improved SecurityBest for Price Comparison
• The pool of IP Addresses
• Better Performance and Improved Security
• Best for Price Comparison
• Conclusion

You can access the pages with different IP addresses when you collect heavy data from various websites. It is possible to use rotating proxies between your computer and the websites you target. These proxies cyclically change the IP addresses from the proxy pool and assign your computer a new IP address every time you send a request. Rotating proxies are the best for businesses as they operate with different IP addresses and offer excellent anonymity. They are also well suited for complex web scraping tasks.

If a normal proxy acts as an intermediary between your computer and the target website, providing anonymity needed on the Internet, then why do we need a rotating proxy? It is because a rotating proxy can automatically rotate the IP addresses, unlike a normal static proxy. Your requests go through different IP addresses, allowing you to focus on your work. In short, the rotating proxies are used for the following:

• Enhancing your anonymity
• Avoiding Rate Limiting
• Increasing reliability

Why Do You Need To Rotate Proxies?

Below are some reasons for rotating proxies that provide us with benefits in certain areas.

• Web Scraping and Web Crawling 

The companies use web scraping, and web crawling to prepare themselves for new challenges and detect trends in the market and the industry. Some websites have the speciality to identify the crawling bots and block the IP addresses through which they connect. You can use rotating proxies when parsing and crawling web pages. The bots and parser tools traverse the Internet using different IP addresses, so the chances of getting banned from websites are minimal.

• Search Engine Optimization

Like social media marketing, SEO is a vital process for many companies. A good SEO strategy involves technical optimization, keyword research, ranking, and competitor analysis.

You need to crawl the website if you have to audit the competitor. Your IP address can be blocked if you fail to perform such operations. Here comes the need for a rotating proxy. It assigns a new IP address for each request and ensures that the site audit is complete.

• Social Media Marketing

In today’s world, social media is a powerful tool for growing your business and driving sales. You can use multiple accounts for publishing posts and comments. But your IP address can be blocked as this method is against the rules of most social media platforms. So, you can use rotating proxies that will automatically change your IP address and make the servers think that the request is coming from a different location.

• Content Restriction

Some IP addresses are geographically limited to some sites. You can bypass the geo-based blocking and access your desired website by selecting proxy servers with IP addresses outside the proxy pool’s geographic area. Rotating proxies will be of great use when you have to access geo-blocked content for any reason.

How To Rotate Proxies In Python

You can rotate proxies in Python using the below steps.

Install requests

First, we must download and save a list of free proxies in a text file. You can download the free proxy list using this link and save the file with any name like list_proxies.txt.

You must install the requests module by opening your command prompt.

!pip install requests

You have to import the requests module by using the below command.

import requests

Create sending_request function

You have to create a sending_request function and prefer using the http proxy as most free proxies don’t use the https protocol. We used try-except block because most of the free proxies don’t work..

def sending_request(session, proxy):
    try:
        response = session.get('http://httpbin.org/ip', proxies={'http': f"http://{proxy}"})
        print(response.json())
    except:
        pass

Read proxies_txt

You must read the list_proxies.txt file containing the free proxies list and save it to the variable named proxies.

if __name__ == "__main__":
    with open('list_proxies.txt', 'r') as file:
        proxies = file.readlines()

Create Session

You must create a session from the requests module and follow the steps below.

• Loop through the proxy
• Pass the proxy and the session to the sending_request function

with requests.Session() as session:
    for proxy in proxies:
        sending_request(session, proxy)

You will get the list of proxies as shown below.

These are some proxies, and the list goes on with more proxies, but they don’t work.

Features of Rotating Proxies

Some of the significant features of rotating proxies are mentioned below.

• You can have more clients with the help of rotating proxies. All users do not connect to the Internet at the same time. When someone connects, the free IP address is selected and assigned to the computer having Internet access.
• You can perform many online actions using rotating proxies without fearing being banned or blocked by websites.
• When using rotating proxies, no one can track the device’s activity on the Internet.
• With rotating proxies, you can visit any website, including those that have blocked user access with a particular IP address.

Potential Benefits of Rotating Proxies

Some of the potential benefits of rotating proxies are given below.

The pool of IP Addresses

While doing online research on a particular topic, you must move across different websites several times a day. You can move through various pages of a particular website as much as you want. But what happens if the website owner tracks the page visitors? He can mark your IP address as suspicious when he notices your trends. There is a chance that the website may block or ban your requests if you use a single IP address. Therefore, you must consider rotating proxies as they do not reveal your original IP address. They provide you with a pool of IP addresses that change periodically.

Better Performance and Improved Security

The rotating proxies shield your systems from cyberattacks by providing you with different IP addresses. This way, no one can keep track of your browsing habits. The security of the rotating proxy depends on the provider you choose. It is preferred to choose paid rotating proxies as they provide a high degree of security to your business and applications.

Best for Price Comparison

Price comparison plays a significant role in attracting and converting website visitors to businesses. Companies need to do price research to gain a competitive edge, as having a product price too high or too low can harm their marketing efforts. With the help of rotating proxies, companies can easily scrape through their competitors’ websites without getting blocked and stay up-to-date with market changes.

Conclusion

We discussed that rotating proxies are better than static proxies as they provide cyclically changing IP addresses and make it hard for web servers to recognize them. Businesses can experience positive transformation in their online activities using rotating proxies. They keep your system safe and hide your identity by assigning you a unique IP address every time you send a request to a website. You can rotate the proxies in Python using the requests module and following the earlier steps. The rotating proxies have many benefits, including applications in SEO, web scraping, web crawling, social media marketing, etc.