The Ultimate Guide To Buying A Proxy: A Quickstart Guide

What do IP address bans and geo-blocked content all have in common? You can get around them with proxies. That’s why knowing how to buy a proxy is an essential part of protecting your network connection.

But how do you know which proxy to buy, and what should you look for?

In this quickstart guide to buying proxies, you’ll learn all you need to know from the basics of proxies, the different types of proxies, and where to buy proxy services.

What Is an IP Address?

Before we talk about what proxies are, it helps first to know what an IP address is. After all, knowing how to buy a proxy isn’t just about knowing where to buy a proxy. To understand what to look for, you must first know what IP addresses are and how they’re relevant to proxies.

Simply put, an IP address, or Internet Protocol address, is a string of numbers that uniquely identifies a device on a network. The protocol in question here is a list of rules that governs the data transmitted over the network. The network here can either be a local network or the entire internet.

Since IP addresses over the internet are unique, they act as an identifier for your network over the internet. Just as your physical address identifies a unique location in the real world where you reside, your IP address points to your computer in the World Wide Web.

An IP address can be local, meaning it serves as your computer’s address in a private network, or external/public, meaning it identifies your device all over the internet. 

Unlike a domain name, which is usually an alphanumeric string that points to a public IP address, an IP address is typically a 32-bit (IPv4) or a 128-bit (IPv6) number.

What Is a Proxy?

Now that you’re up-to-speed with IP addresses, we can talk about proxies in more detail. This knowledge will prove valuable when looking for how to buy a proxy.

A proxy server, often shortened to a proxy, is a machine that acts as an intermediary between clients requesting network resources and the webserver dispensing those resources. Think of the proxy as a ‘middle man’ between your computer and a web server.

How proxies work

While full detail of how proxies work is beyond the scope of this guide on how to buy a proxy, we’ll provide you with a condensed version here, nonetheless. As we mentioned before, this high-level review will help you better understand how to buy a proxy.

By now, you know that every computer on the internet needs a public IP address. This address helps web servers send your computer the correct data each time it sends a request to the server. 

This process is analogous to how the post office knows which mail to send to you through your real-world address.

A proxy server makes this request on your computer’s behalf, collects the web server’s response, and forwards it to you, so your computer can download the web data. All of this communication happens behind the scenes each time you browse a website on your browser.

Types of proxies

Usually, when you decide to purchase a proxy, you pay for an external IP address different from your own. That’s because the proxy server has a list of IP addresses registered to that proxy, so it changes your network’s external IP address each time you connect to a proxy. Buying proxies is, therefore, essentially the same as buying external IPs.

Let’s now have a look at some common types of proxies that you can buy today.

Residential proxies

Residential Proxies let you choose a specific location, such as a country, and connect to it with a residential IP address. A local ISP (Internet Service Provider) usually provides the residential proxy with a real IP address with a physical location in the residential country. For this reason, when connecting with a residential proxy, you’re virtually indistinguishable from a resident of that country.

Datacenter proxies

Datacenter proxies are proxies a private corporation provides. Unlike residential proxies, data center proxies aren’t affiliated with ISPs. That’s one reason why data center proxies offer superior privacy and anonymity. At the same time, many people can simultaneously use these types of proxies as cloud service providers host them.

Mobile proxies

Lastly, we have mobile proxies. Mobile proxies are mobile devices that provide proxy services using 3G or 4G cellular network connections (and now 5G). Much like residential proxies, mobile proxies also correspond to a physical mobile device in a real-world location. The mobile proxy also has an IP address that users can connect with to the internet.

Proxy Use Cases for Businesses

By now, you should know a thing or two about buying proxies and the different types you can buy, but this knowledge might not entirely convince you. After all, why would you pay for something you have little use for?

The thing is, there are a bunch of uses for proxies, especially if you’re running a business. Here are some common use cases for proxies in business:

Verifying ads

Sometimes, a businesses’ reputation is half the battle for getting clients and customers. In such cases, a proxy can help you verify the ads on your website and block any suspicious or inappropriate advertisements. 

As an example, think of a clothing retailer displaying some ads on its website. If the ad is inappropriate, customers may change their minds about buying products from the retailer.

Lead generation

Web scraping is one of the essential tools for generating leads available today, as it lets businesses collect user data online. Without a proxy, however, you can easily get an IP ban or blocklist while web scraping. 

In addition, proxies can help you generate leads for a new product launch. For example, a shoe company launching a new shoe will need to generate leads for their marketing campaign; otherwise, their product launch may fail.

Market price monitoring

You can also use web scraping to monitor the competition’s products and their market prices. After all, if you’re launching a brand new product, your product won’t sell if it’s way above its competitor’s price. 

Proxies can help web scrapers download data for market price monitoring undetected; without using proxies, you’ll most likely face an IP ban when data scraping.

The above list is by no means exhaustive; there are several more use cases for proxies in businesses. The purpose here isn’t to list all possibilities but to show why knowing how to buy a proxy is a good idea.

Where to Buy Proxy Services

So now that you know about IP addresses and proxies, you’re probably wondering where to buy proxy services online. Perhaps you need more than one type of proxy or would like the flexibility of choosing from different kinds of proxies without constantly switching providers.

That’s where Rayobyte proxies come in!

Rayobyte Rotating Residential IPs are the best choice when it comes to residential proxies. Why? Simple: Rayobyte Rotating Residential IPs rotate your IP address automatically. Rather than manually changing your IP address while web scraping to prevent IP bans, Rayobyte IPs take care of the dirty work for you and help everything run smoothly. 

Additionally, the proxy comes with an easy-to-use dashboard that makes handling all your IP addresses a breeze.

Rayobyte Data Center IPs are also some of the best in the game. With over nine autonomous system numbers (ASNs) to choose from, Rayobyte Datacenter Proxies can help you work around IP blocklists even if a site bans an entire ASN of IP addresses. 

With over 300,000 IP addresses in over 29 different countries to choose from, the proxy’s overall redundancy is also improved. Rayobyte Data Center IPs are also equipped to handle vast amounts of data over the cloud, with a 25 petabyte per month limit.

If neither of these options sounds appealing to you, you can always choose Rayobyte Mobile Proxies. Rayobyte mobile proxies also provide you with a range of rotating IPs. 

However, unlike Rayobyte Rotating Residential IPs, Rayobyte Mobile proxies help you connect exclusively with mobile device IP addresses. With continuous internet connectivity and smooth browsing, you’ll always be able to connect to a remote mobile device with Rayobyte Mobile Proxies.

Final Thoughts

Rayobyte provides a one-stop solution for all your proxy needs. Whether you need Rotating Residential IPs or Data Center IPs Rayobyte has them all.

Now you know how to buy a proxy, choose Rayobyte as your proxy partner for the best proxy services!

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