Business owners are more likely than not to face frustrating restrictions on the web. This often comes out of the blue, when you get blocked for no good reason or can’t reach out to the audience you’re most interested in because you live in the wrong place.
Fortunately, there’s a solution to these problems that can boost your performance beyond expectations. Read this article to find out the answers to the following:
- how you can use a prox server to overcome existing restrictions on the web,
- how to choose the kind of proxies that best fits your needs, and
- what steps to take in order to make sure the proxies are working.
3 Compelling Reasons to Use Proxies
A proxy server is an intermediary between you and the rest of the internet. It represents an additional layer via which you connect to the web in order for your requests to be redirected and the IP address with which these requests are associated to be hidden or altered.
That is, the website you are trying to access will “see” the IP address of the proxy and not your own. This enables a wide range of previously unavailable activities.
Unlimited Web Scraping
Have you thought of automating the tedious, mind-numbing search for useful data you’ve been practicing for the sake of your business? If so, you’ve most probably heard the term “web scraping.” This refers to the automated collection of information from web resources, an activity that’s not welcomed by many websites and can cause your IP to get blacklisted.
A similar practice that brings about the same risk is web crawling. This term stands for going from link to link on the internet in an automated manner to imitate the way in which a normal person would surf the web.
Both scraping and crawling can provide you with a wealth of helpful information. To practice them without limits, you will need a collection of residential proxies to ensure IP rotation and a high degree of plausibility (see Choosing the Right Kind of Proxies).
Geographic Barriers Lifted
Accessing content or audiences blocked in your location is possible with proxies. Typically, this kind of problem doesn’t require the most expensive sets there are, although you should pay attention to the choice of locations available.
Improved Security and Anonymity
As a bonus to the above benefits, quality proxies will act as an anonymizing shield to increase your security, which is important if you’re using a smart practice that you don’t want to share with your rivals or work with sensitive data. Datacenter proxies usually work well for the purpose of anonymity.
Choosing the Right Kind of Proxies
Proxies fall into several categories based on a number of parameters. Most importantly, there’s the following opposition:
- datacenter proxies are generated in bulk and are cheaper than their counterpart, residential proxies (see below). They offer anonymity as well as IP rotation but aren’t as plausible as residential ones and might still get blocked in case of large-scale web scraping or crawling.
- residential proxies are associated with a certain location and are perfectly credible, so you won’t get into trouble scraping the web with them. This comes at a somewhat bigger cost.
How to Test Your Proxies
It’s a good idea to check your proxies using a special tool shortly after you’ve paid for them. For instance, Soax offers a dedicated service to make sure you don’t waste your money.
Rotating Your IPs for Flexibility
From affordable data center proxies for added anonymity and flexibility to full-fledged residential ones, a set of quality proxy IPs is sure to give your business a boost. The key benefits are overcoming geographic and scraping restrictions, while improved security is a nice side-effect.
