The internet is notorious for tracking users, from behavior to the finer details of who we are. Sometimes, we just don’t want to disclose our identity and protect our privacy. While proxy servers are no secret to most of the technically inclined, there are still many users who lack the knowledge to access them.
2. The internet is notorious for tracking users,
from behavior to the finer details of who we
are. Sometimes, we just don’t want to
disclose our identity and protect our privacy.
While proxy servers are no secret to most of
the technically inclined, there are still many
users who lack the knowledge to access
them.
3. what exactly is a proxy server?
A cheap proxy is an intermediate
computer server, that sits between a
computer accessing the internet (the
client), and the destination website the
client is trying to surf.
4. What are proxy servers mainly
used for in the SEO industry?
SEO’s use Proxy Servers to hide or change
their true IP address. There are several
reasons you might want to do this:
5. If you access competitor websites a lot for
research, their webservers log your IP
address and may be able to trace your
activities back to you. By routing your
requests via a paid proxy, your true identity is
hidden
6. If your agency manages lots of Social
Media accounts on behalf of clients, eg
Facebook and Twitter, your agency will be
making lots of requests for many different
accounts but all from the same IP address.
Facebook and Twitter may accidentally detect
this legitimate activity as if you are spamming,
and so block you. Routing each of your
clients’ Social Media activity via a different
Proxy Server makes it look like normal activity
with each account’s activity coming from a
different IP address.
7. SEO agencies tend to send lots of queries
to Google, Bing and other Search Engines.
If you’re all on the same office network, all
that activity from the same IP address,
especially if you use keyword ranking
software, looks like a potential Denial of
Service attack to the Search Engines.
8. To surf as if you are in another country.
Many websites, especially Search Engines,
serve up different content depending on your
country. They determine it by detecting your
IP address and looking it up in a commercial
Geo-IP database
10. A elite proxy IP address looks just the same as any IP
address on the internet. It is composed of 4 numbers
between 0 and 255, each separated by a “.” Each IP address
can also be broken down into classes – as this is a difficult
subject please carry on reading about classes here and here.
If you need to use lots of Proxy Servers, you might want to
avoid sequential IP addresses as lots of requests from
sequential IP addresses could look nearly as suspicious as
coming all from the same one! In which case being able to
use Proxy Servers on at least multiple C Classes, and ideally
multiple B and A Classes, makes them look even more
random and hence less detectable.
11. How exactly do they work?
When your web browser or software is configured to use a
Proxy Server, the requests it sends to the internet do not go
directly to the target website. Rather they are sent first to the
Proxy Server, and the Proxy Server forwards the request on to
the target website. Every internet request has its originating IP
address in its “header”. The Proxy Server may replace your IP
address for its IP address in the header. When the target
websites returns its results eg the web page content, it returns
it back to the Proxy Server, which in turn returns it to you.
12.
13. What is required to use a proxy
server?
For a standard “HTTP” Proxy Server, you don’t need anything
extra. Every web browser supports Proxy Servers, and most
software does also. On a Windows PC if the software doesn’t
support Proxy Servers directly, you can configure Internet
Explorer to use a private proxy, and then the software is
usually “forced” to use the Proxy Server also. All you need to
know is how to configure your browser or software to use a
Proxy Server.
14. Any additional expert tips?
If you need to use Proxy Servers for your SEO
Agency and you come to rely on them for your
business, you should seek out a reputable,
reliable, Enterprise Class Proxy Server supplier.
Like any other service provider for your business,
you need to know they’re reliable, have a fast
infrastructure, have knowledgeable Sales and
Support people you can speak to anytime, and
are entirely safe to use.
15. Price absolutely should not be your
determining factor. As we have seen, free is
a disaster. And very cheap providers are often
just harvesting dangerous free Proxy Servers
from the Internet, packaging them up and
selling them on. A private Proxy Server
provider that advertises that they will
frequently replace your Proxy Servers should
you get blocked is another warning sign.
16. For best results, you may also prefer a provider
who has servers in many different locations and
large numbers of unique A, B and C Classes for
their IP addresses, to avoid detection by not just
your own traffic on sequential or closely related IP
addresses, but insulation against what others may
be doing in the same IP address “neighbourhood”.
The cheaper a provider is, and the less fussy they
are about who they have as clients, the more you
need to worry about what others may be doing that
could affect you, even if the Proxy server you buy
are private.
17. SEOs with overseas clients may want to
use a Proxy Server provider that has Proxy
Servers in many worldwide locations.
