The short answer
An IP ban means a website has decided not to serve an address. You might see a 403, an endless CAPTCHA, a fake error page or nothing at all. Sites often ban a whole subnet or ASN when they see abuse from one IP inside it.
How long do they last?
Rate-limit bans often clear in minutes or hours. Reputation bans can last much longer, and IPs that land on public blocklists may stay blocked across many sites. Staying under rate limits, rotating responsibly and using clean IPs is easier than recovering from a ban.
Also known as
IP block, IP blacklisting, banned IP, IP blocklisting.
Learn more
- How to avoid IP bans when scraping
- Sneaker proxies banned? How to fix it
- IP reputation and proxies
- What is a subnet?
- The Spamhaus blocklists
- MDN on 403 Forbidden
- RFC 6585, the 429 status code
- OWASP automated threats
Affiliate disclosure: Team of Monkeys is an affiliate of Geonode, Webshare and Rayobyte. Links and banners marked as sponsored, and links to Geonode, Webshare and Rayobyte in the text, use our referral links, and we may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. Our explanations and comparisons are written to be useful whichever provider you choose.
Editorial note: Proxy providers change their pools, features and prices often, so treat any figures here as typical ranges at the time of writing and confirm current terms with the provider before you buy.
Editorial note: Proxy providers change their pools, features and prices often, so treat any figures here as typical ranges at the time of writing and confirm current terms with the provider before you buy.