How to set up a proxy for Scrapy

Scrapy is a web scraping and crawling program. It helps to collect the necessary information from all over the Internet, process the data, and organize it into spreadsheets. This whole process will become even more efficient and secure if you set up proxy servers for Scrapy.

Even though scraping is not prohibited, many web resources actively block users for such actions on their sites. To solve this problem, you need proxies. Proxy servers will hide your IP address and replace it with others, and all the actions of the program will look organic as if the sites are visited not by a program, but by real people.

Step-by-step proxy settings in Scrapy

There are two ways to set up an IP-changing proxy in Scrapy.

Method 1: Through query parameters

In this option, you must write the proxy as a parameter.

1. Open Scrapy.
2. In the code, find the middleware named "HttpProxyMiddleware".
3. Find the "meta" parameter and next enter your proxy server data in the format: "proxy": "type://IP-address:Port:Username:Password".



4. Close the code and get to work.

Method 2: Through your middleware

Here you need to create your middleware. This method is considered more isolated and secure.

1. Open the program.
2. Enter the code with your proxy data in the format: ["proxy"] = "type://IP-address:Port:Username:Password".



3. Enable this middleware in the settings and put it before the "HttpProxyMiddleware" parameter.
4. Close the code. The configuration is completed!

How to check if a proxy is working in Scrapy

1. Open any site that can determine your IP address (just type in the query "My IP address" or "Test IP address" and choose which one you like).
2. Scrape it with Scrapy.
3. If you see the address of your proxy server as a result, then the setup was successful.

For the Scrapy service, it is best to choose high-quality private proxies such as HTTP and SOCKS5. They are reliable, fast, and can protect you from any blocking.