Knowing what proxy to use is essential for succeeding with commercial and analytical projects. Here is a brief walkthrough on the difference between residential proxies and datacenters - and why you should avoid the latter.
A proxy is an IP address that acts as an intermediary between your computer and the internet. It routes your requests through its own server instead of sending them directly to the website or server you’re trying to access. This has a number of advantages, such as masking your real IP address and location, and bypassing internet filters and censorship.
Residential proxies are IP addresses that are assigned to real people with physical addresses by their Internet Service Provider. This is in contrast to datacenter proxies, which are IP addresses used by businesses and hosted in datacenters. Residential proxies have a number of advantages over datacenter proxies, some of which we’ll explain below.
Collecting data from websites is a common use case for web scraping. People scrape data for all sorts of reasons, however when it’s done in high volume it puts great strain on website servers. Many websites block datacenter IP addresses for this reason as many scrapers originate from datacenters. On the other hand, residential proxies with rotating IP addresses manage to get through these blocks as they’re much harder to connect to scraping efforts. If you’re trying to collect publicly available data for academic or personal use, a residential proxy can help you get the data you need.
Another common use case for web scraping is targeted advertising. By scraping websites for information about potential customers, businesses can target ads specifically at people who are likely to be interested in their products or services. However, many website owners don’t want their data to be used for this purpose, so they block datacenter IP addresses. Residential proxies can help you get around these blocks and collect the data you need for targeted advertising.
A residential proxy is also a great tool for ad verification because it allows you to route your traffic through a real IP address. This makes it more difficult for ad blockers to detect your ads and makes it more likely that they will be seen by potential customers.
There are a few things to keep in mind when using a residential proxy for ad verification. First, you need to make sure that the IP address you are using is from a country where your ads will be seen. Second, you need to make sure that the IP address you are using is not on any blacklist. Finally, you need to make sure that you are not sending too much traffic through the proxy.
If you follow these tips, using a residential proxy can be a great way to improve your chances of success with online advertising.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine results. As part of SEO, webmasters often monitor their website’s position in search results, as well as the positions of their competitors. This can be done manually, but it’s more efficient to use a web scraping tool. However, many search engines block datacenter IPs, so using a residential proxy is essential for getting accurate results.
There are many other uses for residential proxies, such as market research, online directories, and price comparison websites. If you need to collect data from the web, a residential proxy can help you get around blocks and access the information you need.
