Cloudflare Error 1015: What Is It and How to Avoid

Cloudflare Error 1015 occurs when Cloudflare flags and bans your IP address. If you exceed a website's rate limit while scraping, you can encounter this error.

Here are four methods you can use to solve this error.

• Method 1: Limit your number of requests.
• Method 2: Get premium proxies.
• Method 3: Rotate your headers.
• Method 4: Use a web scraping API.

Method 1: Limit Your Number of Requests

The Eeror 1015 occurs when Cloudflare's security system receives a large request volume from your IP address and bans you. Reducing the number of requests you send within a particular period can help reduce the likelihood of hitting error 1015.

One way to achieve that is to introduce a delay between requests to reduce the request frequency. Using exponential delays to increase the request interval per failed request also gives your scraper a slight human touch.

However, this method is usually insufficient because Cloudflare employs other security measures beyond rate limiting. That's where other solutions like proxy configuration become handy.

Method 2: Get Premium Proxies

A proxy server acts as an intermediary between you and your target website. By routing your requests through multiple proxies, you distribute traffic load across different IP addresses, seeming different users, and ultimately avoid Cloudflare Error 1015.

Since websites often detect and block free proxies (those hosted on shared data centers), consider premium proxies (ideally residential) to avoid that issue. Check out our web scraping proxy list to learn more about proxy types and the best providers.

Method 3: Rotate Your Headers

Headers sent alongside every HTTP request provide details and context about the sender to the web server. In web scraping, the User Agent (UA) string is the most important header as it informs the website of the sender's web client, operating system, and so on.

Cloudflare-protected websites use databases of bot-like User Agents to identify and block web scrapers. Also, they easily detect when multiple requests are made using the same User Agent. So, by rotating UAs, your requests will appear as if they're coming from different users, allowing you to avoid Cloudflare Error 1015. 

Also, ensure your UA strings are correctly formed and match the other headers for the best results. Check out our top list of User Agents to learn more and get some working examples.

Method 4: Use a Web Scraping API

The previous solutions may not work for many websites. Moreover, implementing a proxy and HTTP header rotator may be costly at scale, requiring technical expertise and a significant amount of coding time.

On the bright side, you can use a web scraping API like ZenRows to avoid all that. An advantage of this solution is that it's more sustainable because your scraper won't get blocked anymore.

ZenRows is a web scraping toolkit for bypassing Cloudflare and other scraping challenges automatically at scale. Amongst other great features, ZenRows includes auto-rotating premium proxies and manages your headers at scale. Sign up to get up to 1,000 free URLs.