The internet holds boundless and efficient possibilities for your company’s growth. Using data center proxies for web scraping allows you to take advantage of these possibilities by allowing you to access data.

Whether the data required lies behind aggressive firewalls, secretive competitors, or legal geo-restrictions, data center proxies will get you right into the databases you need. According to McKinsey’s report, organizations that leverage clients’ behavioral insights record 85% more growth in sales than their competitors and a gross margin of more than 25%.

Although traditional manual methods of data collection still exist, it will not avail much value if your company fails to invest in automating the process. Datacenter proxies offer that and anonymity on the internet, among other benefits.

The nature of data center proxies

Proxies exist for the fact that your business owns an IP address. An IP address is a unique virtual address stated in a numerical form given to any device that connects to the internet or an internet protocol.

In some instances, you wish to conceal your IP address to ensure your search the internet incognito. Proxies enable you to do that by acting as third-party servers that convey your requests to your target websites. However, in this case, you use the IP address of the server as your pseudo IP address.

When procuring data center proxies for your business, you will find that secondary companies supply them. That means that such proxies are private proxies with no link to any Internet Service Provider (ISP), and not wired into your business premises, unlike residential proxies.

The data center IP addresses lacking a connection to your business premises inhibits a web server from identifying your location and the name of your ISP: total anonymity. You can acquire information to enable your company:

• Strategize on outdoing the competition
• Download data for offline use
• Enhance branding
• Get insights on clients’ needs and buying habits
• Offering reasonable but profitable pricing of goods or services

Why you need data center proxies

Businesses depend on data, but collecting that data often turns into a frustrating, almost futile activity. Many websites use aggressive technology to protect their websites and data from scraping.

Some web servers blacklist IP addresses that suddenly send numerous concurrent requests to their servers. If you need to send requests in such a manner, it would be worthwhile to mask your IP address using a proxy. Some websites have a specific number of maximum hits allowed from a specific IP address.

Without the proxy, your target server will mark your company’s IP address and block it, bringing your web scraping to an abrupt end. This solution works by pooling several proxies or IP addresses into a list. As a user, you pick different IPs in turns from the assortment that you use to send similar requests to a website. This rotation ensures that the target web server concludes that these are requests from different users, and you bypass blocking.

Proxies also enable you to bypass geo-restriction. Some websites automatically block requests from IPs from specific geographical locations and devices. This means that if your business operates from a zone restricted by your target site, proxies will assign you a secondary IP from a country acceptable to your target server.

You can leverage on the high-speed browsing availed by proxies to save time and scrap large volumes of data fast. That this type of proxies has no affiliation to any internet service providers enhances their speeds. ISPs have speed limitations which hamper residential proxies but not data center proxies.

If budgetary allocation for web scraping is a concern for your business, you’ll be relieved to learn that data center proxies are an affordable choice for limited budgets. Be warned, though, that although you can download free proxies for use in your company’s web scraping, it could be risky.

It can expose your business to risks like hacking, spam, and other malicious cyber activities. You can also expose your company’s website and database to scraping by subversive characters that can use it to destroy your company’s image.

Acquiring data center proxies

You can procure data center IPs from a reputable provider by perusing reviews and testimonials from previous customers. Be on the lookout for discount offers and other benefits like a test period.

When shopping keep in mind that there are two types of data center proxies:

• Hypertext transfer protocol proxies (HTTP)
• Secure Socket Proxies (SOCKS)

You can create your proxy. It is advisable to know how to write scripts for your bots with configurations for user agents, randomize delays, and detect restrictions. Note that some website owners now have the resources to recognize and ban data center IPs scraping their sites.

Get a data center proxies package that you can modify to stay abreast of changes in your target scraping websites.

Last modified: September 18, 2020