Jun 14, 2026 • 6 min read
Websites are getting better at detecting bots. Here's what actually works in 2026 to avoid getting blocked.
Use a pool of real browser User-Agent strings and rotate them between requests. Chrome, Firefox, Safari — mimic real visitors.
Don't request pages at machine speed. Add random pauses between requests (1-5 seconds). Human browsing is irregular.
Send realistic Accept-Language, Referer, and Sec-Fetch headers. Most bots don't bother with these, making them easy to detect.
For large-scale scraping, rotate IP addresses via proxies. Services like BrightData or ScraperAPI handle this for you.
Modern websites rely on JavaScript. Use Playwright (not just requests) for sites that load content dynamically.
Check the target's robots.txt file. Ignoring it can get your IP banned and may have legal implications.
If you suddenly get CAPTCHAs, different HTML, or 403 errors, stop immediately — you're being detected.
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