Picture this. Each time you log on to the internet, you leave tell-tell signs about your browsing behaviour. What’s more, your IP address pinpoints your exact location.
The thing is, even though the internet is a worldwide community, many websites geo-lock their site content such that you can only access it from specific locations. So, when you try to scrape data or manage multiple social media accounts, your IP address could get blocked, and access to the desired webpages denied.
Fortunately, there’s a way to bypass such restrictions; residential proxies. These allow you to send your connection requests through an intermediary server, which alters your IP address. Thus, they hide your true identity and accord your anonymity online.
Though more expensive than other proxy types, residential proxies have unique applications, are extremely reliable, and are considered very trustworthy.
Residential Proxies: A definition
These are actual IP addresses that are supplied by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to homeowners. They are genuine mobile and desktop devices that act as intermediaries for your connection requests. Residential proxies consist of real IP addresses and are attached to a physical location.
How They Work
Residential proxies imitate organic user behavior, which enables them to operate undetected on websites. They symbolize real household IPs. Also, because they are provided by an ISP, they can mask themselves as legitimate IP addresses and scrape safely without attracting IP bans.
Types of Residential Proxies
a) Rotating Proxies
These proxies hide your identity behind a proxy pool. They automatically send each request through a different IP, making them hard to detect. They are ideal for use where websites use anti-scraping measures.
b) Dedicated Proxies
Also known as private proxies, these proxies are not shared. They are more reliable and more expensive than shared proxies.
Best Uses for Residential Proxies
Below are some of the top uses for residential proxies:
1. Market Research
Information gathering and market analysis are the hallmarks of a successful business enterprise. They are also crucial if you want to gain a competitive edge. Residential proxies allow you to get accurate information on your competition, customers, and industry. You also gain access to restricted content while keeping your identity private.
2. Data Scraping
To keep and maintain your competitive advantage, you need to gather real-time data. This is made difficult by most popular sites since they restrict access from certain IP addresses. However, residential proxies featuring worldwide locations allow you to scrape copious amounts of data without restrictions.
Besides, they work super fast since they allow you to run many connections simultaneously. Their unlimited connections allow you to send multiple connection requests continuously and perform unlimited tasks without getting blocked.
3. SEO
Optimize your digital presence, rank high on search engine rankings, and keep a step ahead of your competition with tailored residential proxies. You can also run multiple accounts such as social media accounts hence allows you to enhance your social media marketing.
4. Sales & E-commerce
Competitive analysis helps you get an edge over your competition. With residential proxies, you can compare prices and adjust your pricing in real-time. You can also adapt your pricing strategy to enable you to secure a favourable position in the competitive e-commerce industry.
5. Brand Protection
Residential proxies help you to protect your brand from malicious activities. Starting a business and creating its identity takes tremendous work. You wouldn’t want anyone infringing on your copyright or messing with your data’s security.
Benefits of Residential Proxies
Residential proxies have the following advantages:
- They are very fast
- Reliable and efficient
- Legitimate and highly reputable
- Allow for large scale scrapping
- High anonymity level and low rate of IP bans
- Offer multiple parallel connections
How to Choose the Best Residential Proxies
Your proxy choice is a balance between ease of use, reliability, speed, and cost. For the best quality proxy, go for one that best suits your needs depending on the amount of data you need to scrape. Ensure that your proxy provider offers:
- 24/7 technical support
- A large pool of residential proxies
- IP addresses in many countries
- Rotating sessions that allow for unlimited connections
- Allows you to send unlimited parallel requests
Go for proxies that allow for a certain level of flexibility and buy residential IPs appropriate for your web scraping. For example, some allow you to filter residential IPs by country or city, thus helping you to meet a range of diverse business needs. Ultimately, ensure that you purchase from a genuine and reputable service provider.
Final Thoughts
Residential proxies help you drive business revenue. They can provide your business with invaluable support in brand protection, market research, sales intelligence, and SEO monitoring, among others.
If, in addition to the above, you are looking to scrape data but still maintain high levels of anonymity, network security, and low IP bans, then residential proxies are your best bet.