Going online is not an anonymous activity. This is due to the fact that we are constantly monitored through our Internet Protocol Address. An IP Address can provide a variety of information about the user, such as their internet service provider and geographical location. It can also be used to prevent a user from performing extra actions when they return to a website.
If an IP address is used for malicious purposes, it might be banned in a DNS-based anti-spam database. A residential IP could be added into such a database as a result of an activity such as spamming. This is where a rotating proxy server may be useful for businesses who want to make multiple connections to scrape target data.
First of all, what are proxy servers?
A proxy server allows you to connect to the internet. They operate as a go-between, receiving user requests and sending them via their IP address, receiving responses and delivering them to the user. There are many benefits of using a proxy server, such as changing your location, bypassing restrictions and preventing outsiders from accessing your private network. Proxies are characterized as static or rotating based on how they operate. All traffic from a user device is routed through a single IP address by static proxies. Rotating proxies employ a DHCP server to assign a fresh IP address to the device each time it connects to the internet.
Key differences between static and rotating proxies
Residential proxies that rotate, also known as Dynamic or P2P proxies, are accumulated in large pools to be able to cycle amongst each other. These home IPs are typically obtained from end-user devices and are used to successfully conceal your identity behind real people’s IP addresses.
Static IP proxies are provided by ISPs and are hosted on ISP servers rather than end-user devices. In contrast to rotating proxies, static proxies can maintain availability and support long sessions.
Use cases
Using a large proxy network allows you to catch ad fraudsters while remaining anonymous – this might be your best marketing investment in 2022. Having a unique IP address allows you to return to a specific website each time, keep ad fraudsters at bay, and validate the required advertising on questionable sites without fear of being blocked.
There are many other use cases for proxies: Let’s break it down into uses for static proxies and uses for rotating proxies.
Static proxies
Static proxies are commonly used for multiple accounts management, social media marketing, e-Commerce, website testing, and ad verification. They are best used when you need to maintain the same identity for an extended period of time, such as while managing several accounts or going through a multi-step sequence. Many of these functions can be accomplished by establishing sticky sessions with residential and mobile IP addresses, but the given 10 or 30 minutes aren’t always sufficient.
Rotating proxies
Rotating proxies are also commonly used for e-Commerce, but additionally web scraping, market research, SEO monitoring, price comparison, travel fare aggregation. They are ideal for tasks monitoring your success for TikTok SEO as you can interact with the algorithm from different locations as a “different” user. In general, rotating proxies are ideal for tasks that require you to frequently alter your IP address. This mostly concerns data scraping from e-commerce, travel and hospitality, and other websites. If you make too many requests from the same IP address, the website will begin restricting you, displaying CAPTCHAs, and eventually blocking your IP address.
Residential versus data center
Along with residential proxies, you may have also heard of data center proxies. Data centers are large groups of networked servers with huge storage capacities and supporting infrastructure. These facilities, as one might think, house data center proxies. You must first set up a virtual server, download an operating system, and then install specialist software that allows you to establish IP addresses as proxies.
Data center IP addresses are not associated with any Internet Service Provider. Instead, you’re collaborating with the owners of the data center or a third party that creates proxies and distributes them to clients via storage space. Using rotating datacenter proxies, most websites can be visited and scraped. As each subsequent request is sent from a different IP address, tracking and blocking the scraper is difficult.
A residential IP, on the other hand, is a confirmed IP address that can be linked to a real person or device. Residential IP addresses are still retained by ISPs and assigned to customers, but they must pass far more stringent verification than data center IP addresses. As a result, internet businesses and websites place a lot more trust in them.
Which is best for business?
It can be difficult to decide whether to utilize static or rotating proxies. The easiest method to decide is to determine what type of data your company needs and how much of it it requires to run.
Although both static and rotating proxies are effective, they work and function in distinct ways. While static proxies are typically used for operations that require you to keep the same IP address throughout time, rotating proxies are more useful for duties that require you to change your IP address on a regular basis.
As a result, the choice of which of these technologies to use should be based primarily on your ultimate purpose and what you hope to achieve with the proxy.
