Bypassing Web Scraping Blocks Using Google Cache

A clever technique for bypassing common web scraping barriers has gained attention among data professionals. This method leverages Google’s web cache service to access websites that employ anti-scraping technologies like Cloudflare or DataDome.

The technique is remarkably straightforward: instead of directly accessing a website that blocks scrapers, you can retrieve Google’s cached version of the page. This approach works because you’re accessing Google’s copy of the website rather than the actual site itself, effectively circumventing their protection mechanisms.

To implement this method, you simply need to format a URL in a specific way that calls Google’s cache service. The format looks like this:

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:[URL_TO_SCRAPE]

When tested against Crunchbase, which typically returns 403 Forbidden errors when scraped directly using fetch requests, the Google cache method provided immediate access to the desired data. The cached page even contains the valuable ng-state JSON data that makes extraction particularly convenient.

One important limitation to note is that Google’s cached versions aren’t real-time. The cache typically reflects the last time Google crawled the site, which could be hours or days old. For data that doesn’t change frequently, this limitation is negligible, but it would be problematic for time-sensitive information.

This technique proves especially valuable when dealing with websites protected by sophisticated anti-bot services like Cloudflare or DataDome, which typically require complex workarounds involving browser fingerprinting or proxy rotation.

For web scrapers facing blocking issues, this Google cache method offers an elegant solution that requires minimal code changes to implement while providing immediate results for many previously inaccessible websites.