Rotating proxies for scraping - why is it so damn slow lately?

[Locus]

ugh i need help asap. been using rotating residential proxies with my scraper but its super slow now like 1 request every 10 seconds what gives? thought rotating was supposed to be fast not this slow. tried different providers same thing. is it the rotation api or are sites just throttling me? if anyone has a good setup or knows how to speed things up without getting blocked id be so thankful. just wanna scrape and be done not watch this crawl. pls dont say i need datacenter proxies that defeats the purpose. need a real answer fast

 

[Girder]

Try randomizing your request headers and adding some delays between requests, maybe sites are throttling your user-agent or IP pool. Are you using any backoff logic when errors pop up?

 

[Revenant]

Careful with just throwing more requests at it tho, I had a buddy who thought flooding sites would speed things up but got banned quick. Do you guys ever hit any false throttling or just pure IP block?

 

[Credence]

rotating proxies can slow down if the providers are throttling their API or if the sites are implementing aggressive rate limiting, so sometimes switching proxies isn't enough you gotta also optimize your request timing and maybe use some smart delays

 

[Phantom]

Yup exactly, rotating proxies are not magic. One thing you can try is implementing a more sophisticated request queue that paces your requests better instead of just blasting. It's not about more proxies, it's about smarter timing.

 

[Lag]

Have you ever tried adding a delay between requests or randomizing your request times? I had a similar issue and it turned out the proxies or site were just throttling me hard unless I slowed down.

 

[Velocity]

been doing this 3 years, and honestly, sometimes slowing down isn't enough. if sites are really throttling hard, no way around it without changing approach or targets. speed isn't always fixable with proxies alone.

 

[Locus]

thanks for the tips guys, really appreciate it. yeah i try randomizing headers and spacing requests but still slow as hell. not sure if its the proxies or sites just throwing the book at me. no, i don't think its false throttling, just straight up IP blocks and rate limits. gonna try some more delay tweaks and see if that helps, this crawl is killing me.

 

[Cadence]

just my 2 cents, proxies are probably overused or flagged now, so they throttle or block more, making everything slow as hell. might be time to switch providers or rethink your rotation strategy.

 

[Tactic]

Have you noticed if it's happening with a specific provider? I had a similar issue and switching to a less popular proxy pool actually boosted my speeds again. Seems like some providers are just getting too congested or flagged these days.

 

[Haste]

ngl yeah, that's usually the first thing I check. Some providers get hammered with traffic and throttle hard, especially during peak times or if they get flagged a lot. ymmv but switching providers or splitting proxies across different pools can help a ton.

 

[Shunt]

different angle: I remember a time when I thought it was just about the provider but then I realized sometimes my own setup caused the slowdown. like, if I run too many threads or hit too many endpoints at once, speeds tank even with fresh proxies. ever had that happen?

 

[Pace]

Honestly, I think a lot of the slowdown lately is less about the proxies and more about the scraping tool itself or how it's configured. I've had better luck using tools like ScrapingBee or SerpAPI because they handle the proxy rotation and throttling on their end, so I don't get bottlenecked by my own setup. It might be worth trying one of those instead of juggling proxies manually, ymmv.

 

[Tundra]

Are u sure that's the main fix tho? I mean, those services help but if the proxies are slow on their own, it can still bottleneck. Sometimes the issue is just the proxy provider gettin overloaded or flagged.

 

[Haven]

Exactly, that's what I was thinking too. Have you tried pinging or doing a quick speed test on the proxies before scraping? Sometimes it's just about knowing if they're actually fast enough to start with

 

[Savor]

Different angle: maybe it's not just the proxies or the speed but the target sites getting smarter or more aggressive with anti-bot measures. If they're throttling or blocking more, even fast proxies will slow down. Sometimes it's just bad luck with the timing and the site's defenses lol.

 

[Shroud]

Nah, I gotta disagree with that. I've been using rotating proxies for a while and honestly, it's rarely about bad timing. Usually, it's the proxy provider's network quality or the proxies themselves just being slow or overloaded. Timing can be a factor, sure, but more often than not it's the proxies. I remember switching providers once and suddenly my scrape speeds doubled. So I think people blame timing but it's really about the quality of your proxy stack.