If you’ve been into web scraping for a while, you’ll know it’s getting harder these days. You can’t just scrape websites like you did before, thanks to anti-scraping technology. Some popular sites are using this technology to ban requests from web scrapers.
Hence, you would need to be more creative about how you approach web scraping from now on. One solution you can use is to try residential proxies to help you with web scraping. Using these will help you extract web data without getting restricted due to anti-scraping measures.
But that’s not the only reason why residential proxies are useful. We’re here to tell you about a few advantages of using them for web scraping.
What Are Residential Proxies Used for?
Before we talk about the advantages, let us talk about why you should use residential proxies. You may have heard of data center proxies but may not know about residential proxies. Using a residential proxy allows you to choose a specific location to surf the Internet even if you are from a different region or country.
Your assigned IP address which is located and used in a home or office is given by the ISP and not the data center. So if you use a static residential proxy, it would seem like the request is coming from an individual. As you can imagine, this would make it harder for websites to identify that you’re using a proxy. The residential proxy you use will have its own IP address owned by an Spectrum phone plans Internet service provider.
So the site you visit won’t be able to tell that you’re using a proxy. This ensures that your web scraping activities can be done much easier. However, you should know that it’ll cost you more to use a residential proxy than a data center proxy. You could argue that it would be worth it in cases where data center proxies are blocked by websites.
Now you know what they are, let’s take you through how residential proxies are good for web scraping.
They Are Reliable
The number one reason we can think of recommending the use of residential proxies is that they’re reliable. When it comes to web scraping, you should know that things can go wrong very easily. So having proxies that are reliable should be one of your priorities here.
When you use a data center proxy, you give websites a chance to feed you false information. In some cases, the information may not be 100% false but could mislead you anyway. Whatever the case, websites could prevent you from accessing the data you’re looking for.
Since web scraping can cost you, misleading information is bad for your business. Also, if you get misleading information from websites, you could go off track. Think about it. If you want to compare prices online, would false information be useful?
Would you be able to price your products right if you access the wrong competitor prices? In such a scenario, it’s easy to see why using a residential proxy would be much better. You’ll find these proxies are reliable at giving you accurate information that you need.
In addition, when you use a residential proxy, you can access the same information as other users. So there’s no chance of you acting on false or misleading information. In this way, you can make better decisions related to your products and services.
Web scraping using residential proxies protects your brand identity, too. This allows you to maintain your brand presence online and win more customers in the long run.
It Allows You to Stay Anonymous
Another big advantage of using a residential proxy is it allows you to stay anonymous. If you’ve web scraped before, you’ll know how important anonymity is. You would also know how many websites can now track which IP addresses access their network. This is why you won’t be able to use data center proxies for web scraping.
But you’d be happy to know that this isn’t the case with residential proxies. You can use these proxies to stay anonymous when accessing websites. You can also use them to look at the social media pages of different competitors. This would give you a glimpse of how competitors are using social media for their promotion.
We’ve talked about how residential proxies use home routers to divert traffic. You can see how this process allows you to stay anonymous during web scraping. You can extract all the data you want to work with when you stay anonymous online. This in turn can allow you to use web scraping for pricing your products right.
You can also use web scraping to find out how your competitors are marketing their products. You can do this while staying anonymous, so you don’t give away your advantage to them.
They Give You Greater Accessibility
Residential proxies allow you to access websites from different locations around the world. So you don’t have to look at your competitors from your country alone while web scraping. You can also access information from websites you are not allowed to access because of your location.
You’ll find websites that allow users to access information relevant to their location. So you won’t be able to access this information if you’re not within their geographical limits.
However, you can use a residential proxy to skirt around this issue. You’ll find plenty of optimized residential proxies out there to web scrape in this case. You get to choose a proxy from the location you want to access websites. So, you don’t need to physically travel to these locations to access the websites you need to visit.
You can even choose a proxy from the state and city that has competing websites. This allows you to narrow your search to include relevant information. If you choose a good residential proxy service, you can have access to any location you want. It can be useful to have this information at your fingertips for various reasons.
You’ll find pricing your products and designing marketing campaigns are some of the reasons why you need to use residential proxies for web scraping.
Conclusion
Now you know some of the advantages of using residential proxies for web scraping. With time, you’ll see how these proxies are more useful than data center proxies. You’d be happy with the anonymity and reliability that these proxies offer you.
This would make web scraping easier and more fruitful for you. Also, you should know that residential proxies aren’t facing restrictions as of now. We can’t say the same for data center proxies which is why we recommend residential proxies.
