With the Internet pervasive in many aspects of life, it has evolved into a useful tool for locating travel information. Websites that scour the web for information on the best prices and other travel plans are known as travel fare aggregators. To acquire the information for you, these aggregators must scrape a large number of websites. Web scraping must take place in real time.
What are Travel Fare Aggregators?
Let’s say you’re eager to travel and want to buy plane tickets and hotel accommodations. This is something you can do on the internet. You might look up flight information and rates on several airline websites. Then you might go to hotel websites to make a reservation. Instead of performing all of that, you may go to a travel fare aggregator’s website.
These websites compile data from several travel sites and present you with the best selections. They handle all of the grunt work for you. But to do so, they’ll have to trawl the web in real time for data. You must utilise proxies to scrape the web without being noticed or banned from a website.
What are Proxies or Proxy Servers?
Your computer must be linked to the internet while searching for information on the internet. The website that is intended to provide you the information can see your IP address when your computer sends out a request for information. Your IP address is the internet’s unique address for your machine. The IP address contains information about your computer’s location and other factors.
Let’s pretend you’re a travel fare aggregator who makes a lot of queries for information from a travel site, such as an airline. Soon, the website will notice that you are attempting to scrape its data and will block you. So, how do you scrape the internet for data without being caught?
This is where the proxy server comes in. Proxy servers, also known as proxies, act as a go-between between your computer and the rest of the internet. A proxy server is nothing more than a web-connected computer. You make a request for information, which is routed through the proxy server. The proxy then uses its IP address to send the request to the website. As a result, the target website is unaware that you have requested information.
Rotating Proxy Servers
However, if you use the same proxy to make 100 requests, the proxy will be prohibited since one machine is making so many requests. That is why, when utilising a proxy server, you employ a succession of proxy servers rather than just one. Each request is sent through a separate proxy server on rotating proxy servers.
This might make the target website believe the request came from a legitimate user. To make several requests for information from a website, you can specify a number of rotating proxy servers. Web scrapers, such as travel fare aggregators, employ this strategy.
Residential and Data Center Proxies
The question is how to gather a large number of proxy servers to utilise as rotating proxies. Data Center Proxies are an option. A data center’s proxy servers are used here. The most significant downside of data centre proxies is that their IP addresses will be identical, which may result in a website ban.
Scraping the web with residential proxies is a superior option. Residential proxies are proxies that are run on real computers in real places. As a result, the ideal choice for travel fare aggregators is to scrape the web using residential proxies. Most travel aggregators will utilise a slew of rotating residential proxies to explore the web in real time for the information they need.
Overcoming Geo-blocking
Let’s imagine you’re in the United States and want to visit Russian websites. Geo-blocking may, however, be used by some websites. This prevents some countries from requesting information. So, how do you get around it? I’m using a proxy server once more.
A user in the United States, for example, may utilise a Russian proxy to access geo-blocked websites in Russia. Even better, use a Russian proxy server that is based in Russia. Without knowing where the request originated from, the Russian website will assume it came from someone in Russia.
Conclusion
Travel fare aggregators must, without a doubt, employ rotating residential proxies, ideally from the nation of origin of the website they are scraping. Please keep these considerations in mind if you want to build a travel fare aggregator website. Also, check for proxy services who can assist you in scraping the web. They are not overly pricey and are well worth your money.