7 Reasons To Use Residential Proxies for Scraping Web Data

August 9, 2022 • 0 Comment

Web scraping is the collection of information from the internet. Normally, scraping uses bots (programs that do automated tasks on the web) to collect data from public online sources automatically. The data collected is then analyzed and used for various purposes.

Why Scrape Data And How Residential Proxies Can Help

While different businesses have specific needs and goals, one thing hasn’t changed – information is power.

“Access to the right information at the right time gives your business a massive leg-up over the competition”

Some of the uses of web scraping include:

Market research and analysis
SERP (Search Engine Result Page) tracking for SEO optimization
Competitor pricing and price monitoring, especially for e-commerce
Brand monitoring and verification of ads
Lead generation
Automation of marketing
Machine learning development.

The ability to scrape the web efficiently and without restrictions allows you to track the competition, develop strategies, make informed decisions, and pivot based on comprehensive market and competitive research.

As a result, the competition online has grown, leading to social media platforms and websites being extremely cautious about who’s using their services, what data they make public, who’s scraping their data, and how they can prevent it. This is where residential proxies come in.

What Are Residential Proxies

A proxy server acts as an intermediary between a client device and the web. They receive all device requests and alter the client’s IP address and other potentially sensitive data before sending them to the destination servers.

Residential proxies use real IP addresses issued by ISPs and assigned to an actual device, like a computer or a smartphone. When you’re using a residential proxy, websites and other online platforms “see” you as an authentic residential device. This simple feature gives you a stable, secure connection that’s impossible to distinguish from other “organic” visitors and virtually impossible to detect.

Why Use Residential Proxies for Scraping Data

Here are some of the key benefits that make residential proxies a perfect option for efficient and safe web scraping.

Anonymity

Residential proxies keep your real identity hidden while you scrape data. Anonymity is critical for effective web scraping. Online platforms and websites want to keep their public data as secure as possible, often blocking access from their competitors’ IPs and any other suspicious-looking traffic. Routing your traffic through residential proxies gives you anonymity allowing you to extract and scrape web data without restriction.

Reliability

Websites sometimes feed misleading data to scraping requests to protect their data from being scraped. Misleading data leads to inaccurate analysis, which is bad for business. By using authentic residential IP addresses, scraping bots can collect accurate data, especially for real-time requirements like retail price comparisons for e-commerce.

Geo-Targeting

Generally, search engines, websites, and social media platforms feed users curated information based on their online history and geographic location. Accessing and scraping geo-specific data like comparing prices and offers may prove challenging. Residential proxies allow you to select an IP from the geo-targeted continent, country, or even city, ensuring the data you get is 100% authentic.

Automation tools and compatibility

Residential proxy service providers normally support a variety of automation tools, with some even having theirs built-in. To take your scraping up a notch, they support SEO automation tools. Additionally, the proxies are fixed, and their configurations don’t change, making them compatible with most systems.

Scraping on a larger scale

For scraping to be effective and accurate, you need to send a large enough volume of requests. The greater the number of requests, the more up-to-date the information will be. Multiple requests from data centre IPs will be easily flagged and blocked. However, because rotating residential proxies send each request through a different IP address, there’s no way to link them to each other and risk getting blocked. The faster acquisition of high-quality data when scraping using residential proxies can increase profits by up to 300%.

Evade blanket bans

Blanket bans are the bans some websites place on an entire series of IPs. AWS IP addresses, for example, are banned by most websites because of multiple cases of overloading websites with requests. Authentic, ethically-sourced residential proxies evade blanket bans because they come from real devices with real ISP-issued internet connections.

Unlimited concurrent sessions

Residential proxies allow you to scrape data from multiple websites simultaneously. Concurrently sending multiple requests allows you to scrape larger volumes of data faster. The larger the sample of data you analyze, the more accurate the results you get making them more effective as an information gathering and decision-making tool.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for high security and anonymity for large-scale web scraping, then residential proxies are for you. Not all proxies are created equal, however. The residential proxies are ethically sourced and 100% authentic. This global network of real users is a perfect solution for your web scraping needs, ready to give your business a boost.!