Are you looking to maintain your competitive advantage? If so, how do you gather data on industry trends and your competition’s marketing activities?
How about if you are looking to expand your business into the international market? In that case, you need the ability to choose a specific location and connect to the internet as a real user from there – without any restrictions.
Although websites are quite adept at detecting proxies – and blocking them- residential IPs do not undergo much scrutiny since they are linked to real home addresses.
So, what does all this have to do with residential proxies?
Read on for more information on what residential proxies are, how they work, their uses, and the reasons behind their high popularity.
What are Residential Proxies?
Residential proxies are IP addresses assigned to a homeowner by an internet service provider(ISP). They allow you to conceal your IP address such that you can engage in online activities like web scraping, SEO, and social automation, without getting blocked.
Since they use real residential IPs assigned to your internet devices, they are considered trustworthy. If you want to buy residential proxies or get more information, visit Oxylabs to learn more.
How Do Residential Proxies Work?
Residential proxies direct your internet traffic through an intermediary server. The proxy server allocates you a different IP belonging to a real device. Subsequent requests are then channeled through the new IP address.
Upon making a search request, it is relayed via your residential proxy, thus concealing your real IP. This means that sites you connect to perceive your activity as that of a regular user.
Residential proxy providers boast a pool of IP addresses and route your requests through any of the available IPs.
Some providers also have rotating residential proxies. These change the IP addresses they use to connect to the web per each request or for a specific period. This is particularly useful for web scraping purposes.
Uses of Residential Proxies
Residential IPs can be used for various purposes. They are also highly secure and more trustworthy when compared to other types of proxies available. You can always find more information on the internet, but here are the primary uses of residential proxies:
1. Web Scraping
As mentioned earlier, you need to study your competition and get informed regarding their activities. The best way to do this is by web scraping. Residential proxies support large scale scraping since they allow you to continuously rotate the IPs.
2. Price Intelligence
It is crucial to monitor market pricing trends to remain competitive. If you overprice your products or services, you might scare away potential customers. On the other hand, underpricing your services could make them doubt their quality.
By using residential proxies, you can leverage sales intelligence software to get timely market price data. This information can be used for price monitoring and comparison to help you boost your sales by adjusting your prices accordingly.
3. SEO
Residential proxies can help you improve your site’s SEO. Scraping competitor sites enables you to get info regarding their keywords and traffic sources. Using this info, you can tweak your site to improve its traffic and leads.
Residential proxy platforms also assist with link building. They do this by allowing you to create links with authority sites. This helps to optimize your site and improve its performance.
4.Social Media Management
With the help of residential proxies, you can create multiple social media accounts and manage them smoothly.
How to Choose the Best Residential Proxy
When purchasing your residential proxies, consider the below factors to get the most ideal proxies for your purposes.
1.The Intended Use
For what purposes do you need residential proxies? If you want to use them for basic online security and small scale web scraping, data center proxies fit the bill. However, for large scale scraping and enhanced security, you need residential proxies.
It’s important to consider the intended use of your residential proxies before parting with your money. As it is, these proxies don’t come cheap hence you want to ensure that you get the right product.
2. Compatibility with Automation Tools
If you are looking to optimize your site, confirm that your residential proxy package supports SEO tools before making the purchase.
3. Unblocking Geo-blocked Content
With residential proxies, you can access content from geo-restricted sites without suffering website blacklisting. This is helpful in cases where some site content is limited to users in certain regions. Before purchase, verify that your package offers this. Note that some providers may have blocked IPs.
An ideal residential proxy also affords you the option of targeting countries or cities using requests that are HTTPS encrypted for enhanced security.
Lastly, ensure you buy from a legitimate provider who will offer you unlimited support. Proxy providers with large IP pools are often more reliable.
Wrapping Up
As we have seen, residential proxies are some of the most ideal proxies that you can use for online data collection. They allow you to conceal your identity as you carry out research on your industry and gather market intelligence.
You need to continually collect relevant and timely data to make informed business decisions. Leverage on residential proxies and take advantage of the enormous advantages they offer your business.
Barry Lachey is a Professional Editor at Zobuz. Previously He has also worked for Moxly Sports and Network Resources “Joe Joe.” he is a graduate of the Kings College at the University of Thames Valley London. You can reach Barry via email or by phone.
