IP Address

An IP address is a unique numerical identifier assigned to devices connected to the internet. There are two types:

IPv4: Uses a 32-bit format shown as four numbers separated by dots (e.g., 192.168.1.1). Each number ranges from 0-255.

IPv6: Uses a 128-bit format written in eight groups of hexadecimal digits separated by colons (e.g., 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334). Created to solve IPv4 address exhaustion.

When using proxies for web scraping, your original IP address is replaced with the proxy's IP address. This is crucial because websites limit the number of requests from a single IP address to prevent server overload. By rotating through multiple proxy IP addresses, you can:

• Collect large amounts of data without getting blocked
• Access geo-restricted content from different locations
• Avoid rate limiting and IP-based restrictions
• Maintain anonymity while gathering data

For example, if you need to scrape 10,000 product pages, using proxies lets you distribute requests across multiple IPs instead of hitting the website repeatedly from one address, making your scraping more efficient and less likely to be blocked.