Discover proactive approaches to secure your account and maintain a seamless online experience, ensuring that you remain within the boundaries established by social networks!
What are rate limits?
Rate limits are measures implemented by social networks to regulate the number of actions you can perform in a specific timeframe. These limits are designed to maintain platform stability, prevent abuse, and ensure fair usage for all users. It's important to respect these rate limits to avoid getting blocked or temporarily restricted by the social network.
Each social media platform maintains its own distinct rate limit policies, considering factors such as user activity, account size, and security considerations.
At PhantomBuster, our objective is to offer you reliable recommendations in accordance with the social network's regulations and our own observations to guarantee a smooth automation experience.
PhantomBuster is a tool which enables you to extract data and automate tasks on the internet safely. It typically needs to act on your behalf using your session cookies to interact with a social network. This grants the Phantom access to your social network account.
The most important thing to have in mind while automating is that these limits apply to the full amount of actions you take on your account each day -- that includes the sum of all of your Phantoms' actions, as well as any manual activity you may be doing.
Best practices
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Start slowly + Warm up your account
With new accounts, it's a good idea to start by automating the same amount of actions you would normally do if you were doing it manually. Gradually increase how much you do each day to warm up your account and allow it to become accustomed to high levels of activity until you can safely do much more. -
Spread your actions throughout the day
It's not a great idea to do a crazy amount in a short space of time - this doesn't look like human behavior. If you want to get a lot done, you should do it in smaller batches spaced out throughout the day. You can easily set this up by defining the 'Number of [actions] per launch' in a Phantom's Setup, and then scheduling repeated launches at set times and intervals. -
Follow the Recommended Limits
Find out the specific guidelines for each social network in our dedicated article:
Rate Limit Guidelines for Social Network Automation. -
Monitoring and Adjusting Rate Limits
To effectively manage automation rate limits, you should monitor your own usage patterns. Each account is unique, and our recommendations may not always align perfectly with your account's specific circumstances. By monitoring your usage you may be able to adjust your automation settings if necessary.
What if I don’t follow the limits?
Failing to adhere to the recommended rate limits set by a platform or service can have a significant impact on your own social network account and with your Phantoms. For example, a social network can start to disconnect your account and this will consequently cause your Phantoms to encounter errors (i.e., expired session cookies).
Disregarding these warnings (violating rate limits) significantly increases the risk of receiving official notices from the platform or, in severe cases, being permanently banned.
Please be assured that we have observed minimal instances of account bans thus far, primarily involving fake accounts or those excessively attempting to scrape numerous profiles on a daily basis over an extended period.
Following rate limits and practicing responsible automation significantly reduces the likelihood of facing such consequences.
Track any major Social Network’s Rate Limit changes in our already mentioned Rate Limit Guidelines for Social Network Automation article!
Join us on the journey of happy automating by following these guidelines! :)
For any limits unaddressed here, be sure to check out our Blog for the complete list: Everything you need to know about rate limits and Every social network limitation any digital-marketer should know.
If you think this article does not address your issue, please contact Support directly. We are continuously improving, so your feedback means the world to us!