Shared datacenter proxies are one of the most popular proxy types, and yet some businesses are unaware of their benefits. It is unfortunate, as shared datacenter proxies provide a significant advantage against the competition. Let us take a closer look and define what values shared datacenter proxies bring for businesses.
What are shared datacenter proxies?
Proxies act as intermediaries between you and the internet, routing your connection and hiding the IP address along the way. Such a process preserves your privacy and enables you to achieve various tasks. The way proxies are set up and source their IP addresses allows us to describe two main types.
One is residential – created with physical devices and affiliated with ordinary internet service providers (ISPs). They are made for legitimacy but have a higher price tag and slower speeds. Datacenter proxies, on the other hand, are all about speed and affordability.
They are created in specialized facilities called data centres. It’s from here that their name was derived. The high-tech equipment makes data centres the best place to store and transmit data at high speeds and low maintenance costs.
One server can house multiple datacenter proxies because the IP addresses are created virtually in bulk using cloud server technology. The connection is not affiliated with an ISP. Instead, a commercial-tier internet with superior performance is used.
Since datacenter proxies can bear large loads of traffic at once, it is a common practice to share access with more users. It simply means that other people, just like you, will use the same IP addresses for their projects.
The alternative is to pay more for a dedicated proxy and have the IP address only to yourself. In some cases, this is a viable option, but more often than not, you will simply be overpaying. Here are the reasons to choose shared datacenter proxies.
The benefits of shared datacenter proxies
Cost-effectiveness. Shareddatacenter proxies are the cheapest option for the performance suitable in most scenarios. Sure there are free proxies, but they are either limited trial versions or miles behind in speed. Even worse is that with free proxies you risk exposing your privacy. You won’t face such risks with a respectable provider.
Speed. While sharing connection isn’t something that increases speed, datacenter proxies suffer the least from being shared. Their superior internet connection and equipment can preserve proper speed, and they might be faster than residential proxies in some cases.
Unlimited connections. With shared datacenter proxies, you won’t be charged by the IP addresses you use. Make as many connections as needed and pay only for the bandwidth used. Shared datacenter proxies are a valuable asset when you need a lot of fast connections.
Large IP pool. Since shared datacenter proxies are easy to create and cheap to maintain, providers always have many IP addresses available. Successful projects always tend to scale, so it is valuable to know that the number of proxies can grow too.
IP rotation. It takes time for websites to notice any suspicious activity and ban the IP address associated. Shared datacenter proxies are rotated for chosen periods to minimise the risks. Of course, if you need an IP address for longer, you can pick a sticky session and keep it.
Bypassing geo-restrictions. Most websites limit the availability of their content to users by checking the location of their IP addresses. Using shared datacenter proxies is an effective way to hide your location and access sites that would otherwise be restricted.
Where can you use shared datacenter proxies?
The features of shared datacenter proxies alone are nothing if we won’t put them to good use. There are many use cases where they outshine other options in price and performance. The most beneficial applications can be linked to web scraping.
Any company needs reliable and relevant data to keep itself competitive. Most of it is online and publically available, so you only need to collect it. But copying and pasting everything by hand is inefficient and impossible in most scenarios.
Web scraping is a process of collecting and extracting publically available data automatically. Scraper bots visit the needed website, find the required content and then download it in a matter of seconds. No human can ever match this efficiency.
Even better is their consistency – bots can scrap the web periodically, so you will always be familiar with the trends. The data collected can be used in many ways and range from textual to visual content. Here are a few examples:
- Brand monitoring is tracking the mentions of your brand online. Scraping tools can collect where your company’s name is mentioned and in what light. Not responding to criticisms in time can sabotage your credibility in the future. It is better to collect this data.
- Price comparison should be done almost daily if you work in online retail. Otherwise, customers will know more about the market price of goods than you do. Avoid overpricing, or even worse, underpricing, with accurate pricing data.
- Market analysis consists of research on other companies, potential clients or employees, marketing campaigns, trends and much more. It is impossible without large amounts of data, so web scraping is also necessary.
- Ad verification is a process of reviewing whether your ads are displayed correctly. Some online advertisers publish them in an inappropriate setting or for the wrong audience. By collecting the ad data, you can independently check whether you get what you paid.
None of the web scraping applications is possible without proxies because websites try to restrict scraping and ban the IP addresses of bots. Shared datacenter proxies can change the IP of a scraper bot to help avoid detection or change location to access geo-restricted content.
Conclusion
Shared datacenter proxies aren’t all-powerful, but they can get the job done in a cost-friendly manner. In short, they bring most of the value of ordinary datacenter proxies at twice the price. It is a great choice, especially if you are just starting.
