Patreon Data Crawl: Creator Paid Content Capture Solution

When you're thinking about picking up Patreon paid content, check out these pitfalls first

Anyone who has ever engaged in data crawling knows that Patreon is a particularly fine platform. After the creators set the content to be visible for payment, ordinary crawlers simply can't touch the edge. Here is a cold knowledge:They have a hidden traffic counter that directly blacklists single IP visits over 20 times/hour. Last year a friend who was a comic mover used his home broadband to crawl for three days straight, and as a result his entire ASN number was blocked, and now he has to verify his cell phone to log into his account.

Dynamic IP pools are the real dads

Don't believe those who say that with a free agent can be fixed tutorials, real test 10 free agents 9 ½ are waste. To be reliable or have to find professional service providers, such asDynamic Residential Proxy for ipipgoTheir IP pool is automatically refreshed every hour, more often than a supermarket discount for eggs. Here's a comparison table to visualize it better:

Hands-On Crawler Configuration

Don't rush to write the code, first figure out theRequest intervals to be randomized. As a chestnut, when using Python's requests library, remember to add 'Referer' and 'X-Requested-With' to the headers to disguise browser behavior. Here's a configuration template:

proxies = {
  'http': 'http://user:pass@gateway.ipipgo.net:9020',
  'https': 'https://user:pass@gateway.ipipgo.net:9020'
}

headers = {
  
  
  'Referer': 'https://www.patreon.com/explore'
}

Be careful to turn onautomatic retry mechanismIt is recommended to use tenacity library to set up 3 times exponential retreat retry. Encountered 403 error do not hard just, immediately switch ipipgo standby node, their API support second switch.

A common rollover scene for older drivers

Time for QA and a few real life examples:

Q: Why can't I see paid content even after logging in?
A: 80% of the time, the cookie is not with the right one, remember to keep the session state in the crawler. Use ipipgo'sSession Holding Agentfunction, the same IP maintains 30 minutes session without jumping.

Q: What should I do if I can't load all the image resources?
A: Patreon's image CDN will check the source, remember to bring in the request header the fullOriginparameter, disguised as a jump from the creator's home page.

Q: Suddenly all agents are disabled?
A: Human verification may have been triggered. It is recommended to integrate in the crawlerSecondary Authentication Bypass Moduleor switching ipipgo'sHigh Stash Agent Package, their enterprise nodes come with authentication cracks.

Choose the right tool and get three years less out of the way

I've used seven or eight proxy service providers, and I ended up using ipipgo for a long time for three reasons:

1. IP poolReal-time map updatesThe ISP can precisely specify the region of the creator.
2. furnishRequest Success Rate Monitoring PanelI can see which route is faster.
3. Technical support response speed faster than a delivery boy, the last time at three o'clock in the middle of the night to mention the work order actually seconds back!

A final reminder: the crawler has to be setReasonable acquisition speed, don't crash people's servers. Use ipipgo.Intelligent speed limit functionThe frequency of requests is automatically adjusted, which is safe and does not waste resources. Remember, thin water can only flow for a long time, data collection is a long-lasting war, choose the right equipment to win half.