In 2023, modern companies and business-minded individuals are always on the lookout for data collection opportunities. Everyone is head over heels for pursuing knowledge and collecting data by any means necessary. However, with so many parties searching for every opportunity for extraction, the whole ordeal becomes more challenging.
The search for data also reveals a lot of details about its significance. Big sources of information will have a ton of clutter, irrelevant topics, and other knowledge aspects that do not serve our purpose. Now data collection is all about researching competitors. Also, it`s about marketers, and other digital gold mines for information that represents human behaviour.
While the web is full of public information sources, data collection pursuits focus on the knowledge of behaviour patterns from clients and competitor businesses. No one is late to the train and everyone is aware of aggregation strategies. Thus, accessing other websites with data collection tools is harder than ever before. With sensors and other protection measures monitoring and looking for organic traffic, many attempts of automated scraping procedures are met with swift IP bans.
Answering the Question of a Proxy Server
All things considered, we must focus on answering the question that plagues every data beginner. If data collection is so difficult, why do so many parties find information without much effort? Of course, there is always an option of buying data sets from other companies. But their relevancy and speed are no match for efficient, real-time web scraping procedures.
For most cases, the answer lies within proxy servers. Middlemen servers that mask the identity and geolocation of internet connections. With proxy servers, companies can protect their aggregators with millions of residential IPs without exposing their digital identity.
In this article, you will learn about the benefits of proxies in finding. Also, you`ll get to know about retaining, and benefiting from valuable sources of information. We will focus on using proxy servers for conducting online service and collecting data. Eventually, we will address the best providers to buy residential proxies. They provide more safety than datacenter IPs, which is essential for automating data collection tasks. Read more for information on where to buy residential proxies and what are the best prices.
How Does Proxy Server Help Collect Data?
Proxy servers make our web connections fast and flexible. After just a few clicks, the user can choose to send packets and data requests through intermediary servers. Unlike VPNs, these connections are faster and more flexible. So the user can choose what apps and browsers connect via proxy but keep the same address (or any other preferred IP) for other needs.
Businesses value proxy servers because they ensure anonymity on the web. Think of it as a necessary safety precaution. Internet connections and HTTP requests already reveal too much information about our location, internet service provider (ISP), and other data. In a company environment, the risk of exposure to criminals is exponential. For these reasons, most companies route all of their internet traffic through proxy servers and VPNs.
Proxy servers erase past mistakes and bypass geo-restrictions that are outside of control. Let’s analyze two cases. Case one – your public IP is banned from entering the website. Case two – all addresses within a particular country or region are not permitted to enter the website. Both cases use similar tactics to control the visitors. Proxy servers throw these rules out the window. The user has the power to choose the desired location and send all data requests to their destination while under a new identity.
Best Proxy Servers for Data Collection
For data aggregation tasks, the best type of proxies is residential proxies. Unlike datacenter IPs, residential addresses are associated with real devices and internet service providers. Furthermore, the network of available proxies is much bigger with residential proxies, with top providers stretching over the entire globe and thousands of IPs in the biggest cities.
Although datacenter proxies are a speedier option, it does not make up for easy recognizability. If the traffic recipient inspects your IP address, it will trace back to a data center, which makes it stand out from regular internet connections. Also, datacenter IPs are much less versatile. And the ranges of obtained addresses let your targets block the entire set of addresses in one sweep. Especially if data collection procedures negatively affect their website.
Also, the much bigger IP fleets and a stronger protection layer make residential proxies the superior option for online surveys and data aggregation. The client can use a lot more servers at the same time, scale up tasks that need multiple fake identities, and prevent exposure to the main IP address. While they are more expensive, residential proxies are clear winners and the only suitable solution for business-oriented clients.
Top Proxy Providers for Data Collection
When it comes to choosing the best options for an affordable price, our best choices are Smartproxy and Oxylabs. These two industry giants always top the lists of the best proxy providers and provide a rich set of features, including web scraping APIs.
Oxylabs is a premium, business-oriented provider, while Smartproxy provides a jack-of-all-trades kind of service with the perfect balance of quality and affordability. Data-seeking companies can choose between their flexible subscriptions and enjoy even better results with a web scraping API. Both providers let us test their data collection tools with a free trial while the access to massive fleets of IP addresses provides the necessary protection for conducting online surveys, running data scraping bots, managing social media campaigns, and many other applications.
Summary
While data collection procedures may seem frightening at first sight, the biggest problems and risks will not affect you if you use residential proxy servers.
Petr is a serial tech entrepreneur and the CEO of Apro Software, a machine learning company. Whenever he’s not blogging about technology for itechgyan.com or softwarebattle.com, Petr enjoys playing sports and going to the movies. He’s also deeply interested in mediation, Buddhism and biohacking.