Travel Website Price Comparison: A Multi-Platform Data Crawling Solution

How does travel comparison work? Solve the IP blocking pitfall first

Recently, a friend complained that the price of air tickets and hotels with a crawler is always blocked by the website IP, tossing half a day's worth of data not to get also be pulled into the blacklist. I am familiar with this thing ah, last year to help people do price comparison tool, for three consecutive days was blocked more than 20 IP, angry almost smashed the keyboard. Later found that the proxy IP rotation can be dealt with, just like playing the game to open a small number, a number was blocked immediately change the next one.

A real case in point: before last year's Double 11, a travel team wanted to monitor the promotional prices of 10 platforms. They used a single IP to continuously crawl, and the result was recognized as abnormal in less than 2 hours. Later, they switched to usingDynamic Residential Proxy for ipipgoThe IP address was automatically switched every 5 minutes and ran for 72 hours without any problem, and finally managed to grab the lowest Hokkaido ski package on the net.

What are the doors to look for when choosing a proxy IP?

There are all sorts of proxy IPs on the market, but there are three things in particular that you need to pay attention to when comparing prices on travel sites:

1. IP type should be the right number of circuits

Data center IPs are cheap but easily identified as machine traffic. It is recommended to use residential proxies, especially those that can simulate the geographic location of real users. For example, if you want to catch the price of Rakuten in Japan, use a local residential IP in Tokyo.

2. Switching frequency should be smart enough

Don't be silly to set a fixed time to switch, a good strategy should be dynamically adjusted according to the target site's anti-crawl mechanism. For example, the anti-climbing cycle of a program is 15 minutes, then set a random interval of 13-17 minutes.

3. Geographic location should be precise

Last time, a customer wanted to catch a special price that only Australian locals can see, and couldn't get the discounted price with a normal proxy. After switching to ipipgo's Sydney residential IP, he directly saved 40% in hotel costs.

Real-world configuration handholding

Take the Python crawler as an example, and use ipipgo's API to realize smart switching:

import requests
from random import randint

def get_proxy():
     Get dynamic residential proxy from ipipgo
    api_url = "https://api.ipipgo.com/rotate?country=JP&type=residential"
    return requests.get(api_url).json()['proxy']

while True.
    Try: proxy = get_proxy()
        proxy = get_proxy()
        response = requests.get(
            'https://travel-site.com/prices',
            proxies={"http": proxy, "https": proxy},
            timeout=10
        )
         Randomize sleep to avoid regular visits
        time.sleep(randint(3,8))
    except Exception as e.
        print(f "Error changing IP automatically: {str(e)}")

Watch this.time.sleepTo set random values, fixed time intervals are like labeling "I'm a robot" on your brain. It is recommended to use a floating interval of 3-8 seconds, which is closer to the rhythm of a real person.

Frequently Asked Questions QA

Q: Why can the price difference of the same hotel be up to 30% on different platforms?
A: The platform will adjust the offer according to the location of the user's IP, and you can see hidden offers with a local IP. For example, if you check Kyoto hotel with Osaka IP, the offer is often lower than overseas IP.

Q: What's wrong with the catch prices not updating all the time?
A: It may have triggered the anti-crawler verification mechanism. Suggestions: 1. Increase the browser fingerprint in the request header 2. Reduce the frequency of requests 3. Replace ipipgo's high stash proxy

Q: How to determine whether the proxy IP is exposed?
A: On https://ip.ipipgo.com/check页面试试, the one that can display complete proxy information is transparent proxy, and the one that displays real IP is high stash proxy.

An Advanced Play on Comparison Monitoring

It's not enough to be able to capture data, you have to be able to analyze price patterns:

1. Price fluctuation calendar

Use a proxy IP to continuously collect data for 3 months, you will find that every Tuesday afternoon and three days before and after holidays are most likely to have buggy prices.

2. Cross-platform price comparison strategy

At the same time hanging 5 platforms login state, with the same batch of proxy IP to maintain the same user profile. This will trigger the platform's "anti-churn" discount mechanism when comparing prices, and you can often catch exclusive discounts.

A user recently went through ipipgo'sLong-lasting session agentsfunction, keep monitoring with the same Japanese IP for 7 consecutive days, and as a result, successfully squatting a special early bird rate for Hokkaido hot spring hotels, which is more than half cheaper than regular channels.

At the end of the day, if you use proxy IPs well, you can travel and compare prices without any trouble. The next time you encounter a price capture problem, do not rush to toss the code, first check the IP strategy is not in place. After all, the first line of defense of the site's anti-crawler is to recognize the IP, to pass this hurdle, the data capture will be a big part of the success.