What Are Rotating Proxies and Why Do You Need Them for Your Business?

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06.01.2023 in Residential Proxies by James Meadow

Proxies make the world go round. But not all proxies are the same, especially when users need to run difficult web data scraping jobs where high-quality proxy server solutions are required.

A rotating proxy has been designed to connect to a pool of IPs in order to get a randomly assigned IP address with every rotation time, depending on the user settings. For instance, the user may choose to select a different exit IP address with every rotation, anywhere between 5 to 60 minutes.

It is worth mentioning that backconnect residential proxies are also known as rotating residential proxies in the industry.

But yet again, not all residential proxies are equal and if basic residential proxies may assign random residential IPs from Tier 2 and Tier 3 countries, special residential proxies offer extended capabilities - such as geo-targeting - which makes them ideal for high-demand use cases, from online scraping and price monitoring to marketing and SEO.

For regular users who want to use proxies for accessing normal web locations, basic residential proxy server solutions may be more than enough, but for businesses that need great content and valuable data, special rotating residential proxies are ready to save the day.

Though it may seem a little bit confusing at first, what we have to remember is that special rotating proxies allow users to select multiple geolocations and are designed to cover all use cases, including scraping activities of high usage websites.

With special rotating proxies at hand, users benefit from a higher degree of privacy and security while scraping for web data online. In addition, users enjoy a higher level of accessibility to the targeted content on the Internet.

What are rotating proxies

Do you need a basic rotating proxy?

First of all, we have to establish from the beginning that residential proxies are generally used by companies to acquire valuable data for their business projects.

Though average users are equally looking to benefit from residential IPs, startups and experienced companies are most of the time directly impacted by the results obtained in data extraction jobs.

That’s the reason why we are mostly focusing on the benefits provided by proxies for businesses and less on regular users who go online for private reasons.

From a broad perspective, a basic residential proxy is useful for somewhat simpler purposes where the user needs to browse online with a different IP. A basic residential proxy provides the user with residential IPs from a single country that hide the user’s real IP address offering anonymity and privacy.

Basic residential proxies are more useful to users who engage in browsing activities that don’t require a lot of scraping and don’t put much stress on the online locations that are targeted for data.

Some of these activities may include price monitoring or SEO tasks that take place on an irregular basis so the user’s scraping attempts won’t be regarded as risky intrusions.

Do you need a special rotating proxy?

As for special rotating proxies that offer users the possibility to select multiple geolocations for their ports, they have been specially designed for the most difficult web data scraping projects in the online space.

Special rotating proxies are normally considered for advanced jobs, usually by both new and experienced companies, as they provide a higher level of connectivity and security on the Internet.

If we are to look for an example, we can imagine a user trying to obtain a set of data from a website that has installed anti-scraping mechanisms. As the requests for data come from a single IP address, the website’s protection mechanisms might block the user’s IP from further access.

However, if the user is ready to implement a web scraping service that allows the rotation of multiple residential IP addresses from various geolocations, that particular website won’t have the time to notice that a scraping attempt takes place.

Since special rotating proxies have proved to be so useful for all types of web data scraping projects, these solutions have become very popular for companies that develop their activities in the online environment.

It’s no wonder that numerous users discover that the same solutions appear under various names online, from ‘backconnect proxies’, ‘backconnect residential proxies’, and ‘rotating proxies’ to ‘residential rotating proxies’.

What we have to remember is that special rotating proxies are probably the best online tools right now for web scraping jobs permitting all businesses to obtain valuable content for their projects.

Advantages of using rotating residential proxies

It has already become obvious that rotating residential proxies are definitely the go-to solution for users trying to acquire the latest information of interest while keeping their private details safe from outside parties.

For instance, our company’s global rotating residential network delivers millions of IP addresses that permit users to scrape data from any online location. Furthermore, if we are to refer to basic rotating proxies, our customers benefit from an attractive pricing policy that takes into account the proxy ports in use and not the data usage.

Since we are talking about a residential system that rotates the exit IP address(es) at a predetermined time, the user is allowed to send and receive data without triggering any suspicions.

Therefore, the businesses that select rotating residential proxies for their business projects choose reliable solutions to target specific data. And when they can connect as local users via residential IP addresses, they have no issues in overcoming any online obstacles towards securing geo-blocked content.

Furthermore, powered by rotating residential proxies, users make sure their scraping attempts won’t fail by receiving altered content from the targeted websites.

Residential rotating proxies make online connections ‘appear’ as natural and harmless browsing activities.

If we are to emphasize four major advantages for companies that choose rotating residential proxies, we would list the following benefits.

Connect from any place in the world

The user is recommended to choose a reliable proxy platform provider that worked for a long period of time to establish one of the best residential proxy pools in the world.

Our superior proxy infrastructure allows users to select a great number of countries to connect from. More countries to connect from translates into higher chances of obtaining the data you need.

All these benefits are available with special rotating proxies that permit users to select any geolocation for the proxy ports, while targeting any high usage websites that are normally difficult to scrape with basic rotating proxies.

Anonymity for the user

The user who chooses a rotating residential proxy network has the possibility to go online with a number of IP addresses that belong to people living in real residential locations, so the chances of obtaining the necessary content increase very much.

At the same time, the constant IP rotation cycle ensures the anonymity of the user by shielding the original IP address from 3rd parties.

Send and receive legitimate requests

A rotating residential proxy network offers users the possibility to access various websites by replacing their genuine IPs with residential IP addresses from real people. 

For this reason, users have the possibility to send and receive online data by masking their private details while obtaining valuable data for their businesses.

Rotating proxies for complete access

Rotating proxies offer users the ability to scrape information from sites that are not easily accessible while providing the best possible privacy online.

Rotating residential proxies act today as the best tools for companies that are involved in data scraping activities offering the best chances of success.

3 popular use cases for rotating proxies

Rotating residential proxies have already been employed by many web-based companies and businesses whose success depends on their Internet presence and the way they understand to acquire and benefit from valuable online information.

Though web scraping activities have taken place for a longer period of time and by using a diversified set of proxies, at the moment the best tools for data extraction are rotating residential proxies that prove to be more genuine than other alternatives.

As rotating proxies have come to be employed by a large number of industries, we will further reveal some of the most popular use cases for these solutions.

1. Data extraction

Companies engage in data extraction activities for multiple reasons, but most of the time they need to discover the competitive advantages of the competition, from the prices they practice to the marketing campaigns they run in various countries and jurisdictions.

With this type of data at hand, companies and their sales/marketing departments are able to discover more easily where the target audience resides and what messages they should produce to reach their commercial goals.

But how can you be sure that the information received is the correct one?

Since online scraping jobs have become more common lately, there is an increasing number of sites that install anti-scraping mechanisms to keep unwanted visitors away. 

For this reason, companies that need valuable information for business development are ready to pay higher prices for rotating residential proxies to avoid getting blocked by any anti-scraping barriers.

2. Latest prices from the competition 

We’ve already emphasized that companies need to be strongly connected to the market and the public they target for commercial interests.

But how to remain competitive in a market unless you have a secret card up your sleeve to help you obtain the latest prices from the competition?

And this is where rotating residential proxies come into the picture as they allow managers and business owners to have a better perspective of a market by revealing the competitors’ prices and the way they manage to advertise their products and solutions.

And when we talk about the market perspective, we have to look a bit further at the potential represented by all these business details for companies, large and small.

With a rotating proxy system in place, a company’s Sales team can have an overview of the overall prices from the industry to make the right decisions to position the company’s products in the market.

3. SEO and social media

SEO and social media represent two faces of the same coin, two areas of interest that can be used by marketing managers to attract traffic and customers on board.

If SEO focuses on attracting customers via search engines, the social media facet of a marketing plan should work to attract users by keeping an open line of communication while offering advice and assistance.

But we live in a highly competitive market where various companies try to ‘speak’ to the same number of customers spending time, money, and keywords. Would it be effective for your business to catch a glimpse of your main competitor’s SEO plan?

Though we can acquire multiple tools to help us discover the main keywords and backlinks from the competition, it is very useful indeed to access the sites of interest without getting noticed by your competitors.

What better way to do this if not by employing rotating proxies that keep your real IP address hidden while masking your presence?

But SEO-driven efforts have their limits and there’s always a good idea to establish a direct line of communication in the online space with your customers.

So, yet again, rotating residential proxies prove their usefulness as social media managers can rely on a list of rotating residential IPs to control multiple accounts though managing them from a single location.

Do you need rotating proxies for your business?

Rotating residential proxies are a great choice for both startups and large businesses that are involved in data extraction, scraping, web crawling, SEO, sales intelligence, social media, app testing, and other difficult online jobs that require both privacy and easy access.

At the same time, these types of proxies work very well for new companies that must grow fast looking for large bandwidth and immediate results in the online environment.     

Our recommendation for users who need to find a great proxy provider is to look for a company that delivers time-tested solutions for all types of businesses and comes with a real understanding of the present market conditions.

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Shifter was founded in 2012, as one of the first residential proxy providers, since then it has become one of the leading proxy networks in the world and it's used by more than 25.000 clients including Fortune 500 Companies. Users can connect from anywhere to access local data without any restriction, while preserving a high degree of privacy and security.