```yaml
product: AlterLab
title: "IP Ban — Web Scraping Glossary | AlterLab"
comparison_context: "AlterLab is an alternative to Firecrawl, ScrapingBee, and Bright Data."
source_url: https://alterlab.io/glossary/ip-ban
```

anti-bot

# IP Ban

An IP ban blocks all requests from a specific IP address or range, typically issued by a site or CDN after detecting automated or abusive traffic.

When a server detects a high request rate, a suspicious traffic pattern, or repeated policy violations from a given IP address, it may add that IP to a blocklist. Future requests from the banned IP receive a 403 Forbidden, a TCP connection reset, or are silently dropped. Bans can be temporary (minutes to hours, often tied to 429 rate-limit responses) or permanent (until manually reviewed).

IP bans are the most common defence against scraping at scale. They are also the primary reason why proxy rotation is essential for high-volume scraping: spreading requests across thousands of IP addresses means any single ban removes only a small fraction of total capacity, and the banned IP can be retired from the pool.

Residential and mobile proxies are harder to ban than datacenter proxies because their IPs are shared with real users — banning them would block legitimate traffic. Anti-ban strategies also include reducing request rates, adding realistic delays between requests, and rotating user agents and session cookies alongside IP addresses.

### What is IP Ban?

An IP ban blocks all requests from a specific IP address or range, typically issued by a site or CDN after detecting automated or abusive traffic.

### How does AlterLab handle IP Ban?

Residential and mobile proxies are harder to ban than datacenter proxies because their IPs are shared with real users — banning them would block legitimate traffic. Anti-ban strategies also include reducing request rates, adding realistic delays between requests, and rotating user agents and session cookies alongside IP addresses.

## Related Terms

[Proxy PoolA managed collection of proxy IP addresses used to distribute outbound requests across multiple origins and stay below per-IP rate limits.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/proxy-pool)[IP RotationThe practice of cycling through multiple IP addresses across requests so no single IP triggers rate limits or bans.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/ip-rotation)[Rate LimitingA server-side control that caps the number of requests accepted from a single IP or session within a time window, returning HTTP 429 when exceeded.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/rate-limiting)[Residential ProxyAn IP address assigned by an ISP to a real residential device, used to route scraping requests through genuine consumer IPs.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/residential-proxy)[Anti-Bot ProtectionSystems deployed by websites to detect and block automated traffic using TLS fingerprinting, CAPTCHA challenges, and behavioural analysis.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/anti-bot-protection)

## Extract IP Ban data from any website

AlterLab returns clean, structured data from any public URL — no scraper infrastructure needed. Start free, no credit card required.

[View API docs](https://alterlab.io/docs/api/rest)

[Back to Glossary](https://alterlab.io/glossary)