How often can I scrape data from Idealista without getting blocked?

When scraping Idealista, there's no universal frequency that guarantees you won't get blocked. The key is implementing responsible scraping practices that respect the website's resources and terms of service.

Legal and Ethical Prerequisites

Before scraping Idealista, always:

  1. Review Terms of Service: Check if Idealista's terms explicitly prohibit scraping
  2. Examine robots.txt: Visit https://www.idealista.com/robots.txt to see crawling restrictions
  3. Consider official APIs: Check if Idealista offers official APIs for data access

Recommended Scraping Frequencies

Based on best practices for real estate websites:

Conservative Approach (Recommended)

  • Request interval: 5-15 seconds between requests
  • Daily limit: 500-1000 requests maximum
  • Session length: 30-60 minutes with breaks

Moderate Approach

  • Request interval: 2-5 seconds between requests
  • Daily limit: 1000-2000 requests maximum
  • Session length: 1-2 hours with breaks

Aggressive Approach (High Risk)

  • Request interval: 1-2 seconds between requests
  • Daily limit: 2000+ requests
  • Risk: Very likely to trigger anti-bot measures

Anti-Blocking Strategies

1. Implement Rate Limiting

import time
import random

def rate_limited_request(session, url, min_delay=2, max_delay=8):
    """Make a request with random delay to mimic human behavior"""
    delay = random.uniform(min_delay, max_delay)
    time.sleep(delay)
    return session.get(url)

2. Rotate User Agents

import requests
from itertools import cycle

USER_AGENTS = [
    'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36',
    'Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36',
    'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36'
]

user_agent_cycle = cycle(USER_AGENTS)

def get_headers():
    return {
        'User-Agent': next(user_agent_cycle),
        'Accept': 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8',
        'Accept-Language': 'en-US,en;q=0.5',
        'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip, deflate',
        'DNT': '1',
        'Connection': 'keep-alive',
        'Upgrade-Insecure-Requests': '1'
    }

3. Handle Rate Limiting Responses

def handle_response(response, session, url, max_retries=3):
    """Handle different response codes appropriately"""
    if response.status_code == 200:
        return response

    elif response.status_code == 429:  # Too Many Requests
        retry_after = int(response.headers.get('Retry-After', 60))
        print(f"Rate limited. Waiting {retry_after} seconds...")
        time.sleep(retry_after)
        return session.get(url)

    elif response.status_code == 403:  # Forbidden
        print("Access forbidden. Consider using proxies or changing approach")
        return None

    elif response.status_code == 503:  # Service Unavailable
        print("Service unavailable. Waiting before retry...")
        time.sleep(30)
        return session.get(url)

    else:
        print(f"Unexpected status code: {response.status_code}")
        return response

Complete Example with Best Practices

import requests
import time
import random
from urllib.parse import urljoin, urlparse
import logging

class IdealitaScraper:
    def __init__(self, base_url="https://www.idealista.com"):
        self.base_url = base_url
        self.session = requests.Session()
        self.request_count = 0
        self.start_time = time.time()

        # Configure logging
        logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)
        self.logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

    def get_headers(self):
        """Rotate through realistic headers"""
        headers = {
            'User-Agent': random.choice([
                'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/91.0.4472.124 Safari/537.36',
                'Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/14.1.1 Safari/605.1.15',
                'Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/91.0.4472.124 Safari/537.36'
            ]),
            'Accept': 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8',
            'Accept-Language': 'en-US,en;q=0.5',
            'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip, deflate',
            'DNT': '1',
            'Connection': 'keep-alive',
            'Upgrade-Insecure-Requests': '1',
            'Cache-Control': 'max-age=0'
        }
        return headers

    def make_request(self, url, max_retries=3):
        """Make a rate-limited request with retry logic"""
        for attempt in range(max_retries):
            try:
                # Implement rate limiting
                if self.request_count > 0:
                    delay = random.uniform(3, 8)  # 3-8 second delay
                    time.sleep(delay)

                response = self.session.get(url, headers=self.get_headers(), timeout=10)
                self.request_count += 1

                # Log request details
                self.logger.info(f"Request {self.request_count}: {response.status_code} - {url}")

                if response.status_code == 200:
                    return response
                elif response.status_code == 429:
                    retry_after = int(response.headers.get('Retry-After', 60))
                    self.logger.warning(f"Rate limited. Waiting {retry_after} seconds...")
                    time.sleep(retry_after)
                    continue
                elif response.status_code in [403, 503]:
                    self.logger.warning(f"Status {response.status_code}. Waiting before retry...")
                    time.sleep(30)
                    continue
                else:
                    self.logger.error(f"Unexpected status: {response.status_code}")
                    return response

            except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
                self.logger.error(f"Request failed: {e}")
                if attempt < max_retries - 1:
                    time.sleep(10)
                    continue
                else:
                    return None

        return None

    def scrape_listings(self, search_urls, max_requests_per_hour=100):
        """Scrape multiple listing pages with hourly limits"""
        results = []

        for url in search_urls:
            # Check hourly rate limit
            elapsed_time = time.time() - self.start_time
            if elapsed_time < 3600 and self.request_count >= max_requests_per_hour:
                wait_time = 3600 - elapsed_time
                self.logger.info(f"Hourly limit reached. Waiting {wait_time/60:.1f} minutes...")
                time.sleep(wait_time)
                self.start_time = time.time()
                self.request_count = 0

            response = self.make_request(url)
            if response and response.status_code == 200:
                # Process the response here
                results.append({
                    'url': url,
                    'content': response.text,
                    'timestamp': time.time()
                })
            else:
                self.logger.error(f"Failed to scrape: {url}")

        return results

# Usage example
if __name__ == "__main__":
    scraper = IdealitaScraper()

    # Example URLs (replace with actual search URLs)
    urls = [
        "https://www.idealista.com/en/areas/venta-viviendas/madrid/",
        "https://www.idealista.com/en/areas/venta-viviendas/barcelona/"
    ]

    results = scraper.scrape_listings(urls, max_requests_per_hour=50)
    print(f"Scraped {len(results)} pages successfully")

Additional Considerations

Session Management

  • Use persistent sessions to maintain cookies
  • Implement session rotation for long-running scrapers
  • Clear sessions periodically to avoid detection

Proxy Usage

import requests
from itertools import cycle

# Rotate through multiple proxies
PROXIES = [
    {'http': 'http://proxy1:port', 'https': 'https://proxy1:port'},
    {'http': 'http://proxy2:port', 'https': 'https://proxy2:port'},
]

proxy_cycle = cycle(PROXIES)

def get_proxy():
    return next(proxy_cycle)

Monitoring and Alerts

  • Track success rates and response times
  • Set up alerts for blocking incidents
  • Monitor for CAPTCHA challenges

Warning Signs of Blocking

Watch for these indicators: - 429 status codes: Rate limiting in effect - 403 status codes: Access forbidden - CAPTCHA challenges: Human verification required - Unusual redirects: Potential bot detection - Empty responses: Content blocking mechanisms

Alternative Approaches

If scraping becomes problematic: 1. Official APIs: Check for Idealista's developer APIs 2. Third-party services: Consider real estate data providers 3. Manual collection: For small datasets 4. Web scraping services: Professional scraping providers

Remember that Idealista continuously updates its anti-scraping measures. Stay informed about changes and adapt your scraping strategy accordingly. Always prioritize ethical scraping practices and consider the legal implications in your jurisdiction.

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