A friend of yours has just bought a fancy dress. You notice the dress is cute during a hangout, and upon asking, your friend confirms she purchased it online. Curious to know where she bought it and with a desire to purchase a similar one, you ask for the web address.
You can’t wait to get home, and as soon as you get home, you search the webpage as you sip your favorite drink. But all you find is your IP has been banned! Urghhhh! It sucks! Now, you need to determine whether your friend referred you to the wrong website. Or, maybe she wanted you to avoid getting a dress like hers.
Well, that’s not it. It could be that the managers of the website servers have slowed or prevented traffic to that website for security reasons. Fortunately, there are strategies you can use to bypass an IP ban, and this is what this piece is all about. So, explore.
Understand How IP Bans Work
So, on this particular day, you wake up to an IP address blocked. Could your server have blocked and prevented you from connecting or using the service? Most probably! Your server could have created an IP-based blockage.
IP-based blocking involves the creation of barriers in certain networks to block traffic from or to a certain set of IP addresses.
What it means is that your server hasn’t blocked you from accessing the content on your website. Rather, it has blocked traffic to an IP address or addresses associated with some applications or content. It happens for security purposes and involves using software on the user’s computer.
Should this happen, you need a solution such as https://netnut.io/your-ip-has-been-banned/. But how does this happen? Here’s how;
The cybersecurity expert uses intrusion prevention systems or sometimes firewalls to achieve this blocking. Remember, cybersecurity experts can also block your MAC address (Media Access Control) address. When this happens, you’ll still find a warning that your IP has been banned.
The sad part is that your IP could be banned for a few minutes. It could also be hours and, in some instances, permanent. If the ban is permanent or lasts for hours, you need to bypass the blockage. But before you go to that, you should know why your IP has been banned.
Also Read: How to Resolve Your IP Has Been Temporarily Blocked Issues
Reasons Behind IP Bans
You could have sent too many requests to a certain website. As a result, you strain the website’s resources and cause a negative website performance. It is a common phenomenon with web scraping, and a cybersecurity specialist could block your IP address. The second reason could be malice. Malice happens when you commit malicious acts like DDoS attacks or hack a website. If a server recognizes your bile, it will ban your IP address.
An IP ban could also result from simply violating a website’s rules. A violation of website rules can be detected as spamming. Sometimes, it can involve posting hate speech or illegal content that violates the principles of that website. When you do this, the server could block your IP address.
Other times, an IP ban can be unjustified, but it still limits you. Whichever the cause of your IP ban is, you can still bypass the ban and access the resources you need. Here is how.
Use a VPN
VPNs are very convenient, especially when you’re up for debugging. A virtual private network produces a safe encrypted tunnel for your internet access. It guarantees you the necessary traffic by giving you a new IP address with traffic. Better yet, with a VPN, you can quickly change your location and gain access to certain web pages that your web scrapers are running.
Also Read: Unlocking the Digital World: Top Five Reasons to Use a VPN
Use a Proxy Server
You can bypass an IP ban by harnessing a proxy server. Proxy servers are intermediaries between your target website and your computer. As a result, these servers give you an effective cloak for your accurate IP address. Therefore, you can use a proxy server instead of interacting directly with your target website.
A proxy masks your real IP address with a different IP address that directs traffic to the website. This way, they dupe the servers and allow you to access the web applications or website uninterrupted.
Delay Between Requests
Previously, you learned that IP bans could be caused by sending too many requests to a website. This means you can delay between requests to allow the website to accept your request to access it. Slow requests mimic humans and hence are a measure of server-friendly requests.
Getting an auto-throttle extension could make the delays less hectic. The extension crawls your download speed depending on the speed of the website you’re scraping and the scrappy server itself.
Rotate Your User Agents
Your user-agents rotation could help you bypass an IP ban. A User-Agent is a cord that your browser sends to the host server to inform the server about the hardware and software you’re using to make a request. This means you mimic different devices and browsers if you rotate user agents. As a result, the cybersecurity expert monitoring your target website server can’t easily detect your web scraping activities.
Also Read: LPB Piso WiFi: Bridging the Digital Divide in the Philippines
Final Thoughts
Many factors can cause an IP ban and give your IP ban blues. However, if your intentions are clean, simple actions like delaying downloads and doing the ‘CAPTCHA’ could help you bypass bans.
Sometimes, bypassing an IP ban can be as easy as respecting the website rules. Going forward, assess the cause of your IP ban and use any of the above solutions to bypass IP bans.IP Ban Blues
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