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Vladimir Fomenko
5 min read
Out of different proxy types, datacenter proxies are the cheapest solution you can get. They offer lots of advantages, but they won’t be useful in all cases. Read on to learn everything about datacenter proxies, their pros and cons, and their optimal use cases.
What are datacenter proxies?
Datacenter proxies are remote servers which you can connect to if you need to mask your IP address for certain reasons. These servers are shared: It means that other users will connect to the same proxy simultaneously with you. This leads to certain complications — but let’s begin with the advantages of datacenter proxies first.
Advantages of datacenter proxies
- Affordable price. Since these proxies are usually shared between several users, proxy provider can split the costs and lower the service price. (Alternatively, you can get private datacenter proxies — as their name suggests, they'll only belong to you.)
- Fast connection speed. Servers are engineered to support connections with myriad users. Therefore, you can expect a very high bandwidth when using datacenter proxies.
- Suitable for most needs. When you need to access geo-restricted content or stay anonymous — and these are two primary reasons why people hide their IPs — datacenter proxies will work just fine.
Disadvantages of datacenter proxies
- The risk of getting banned. Since there will be other users who are connected to the same proxy as you, there is a higher risk that the destination server will suspect something. However, this kind of risk is still low because you have to visit the same website as the other proxy cousers.
- Sub-optimal for web scraping. Residential proxies will do a better job of making your web scrapers appear as real users. Datacenter proxies, on the other hand, can trigger the anti-spam systems more easily.
Residential vs. datacenter proxies
We’ve already figured out what datacenter proxies are. Now let’s talk about residential ones a bit. Residential proxies are real devices with IP addresses that were issued by an internet service provider. Once you route your connection through this proxy type, you’ll appear as a real resident of a country where the medium device is located. Therefore, you’re getting reliable coverage.
🎯 Further reading: Residential Proxies: A Complete Guide to Using Them Effectively
Let’s take a look at the key differences between residential and datacenter proxies:
- Datacenter proxies are cheaper: It’s harder to acquire residential IP addresses and the provider can’t split the costs between users.
- Datacenter proxies are faster: You don’t have to rely on the internet speed and the resources of the device used as a residential proxy.
- Residential proxies are better for web scraping: They're much better at masking the scraping bot's identity.
Why you shouldn’t use free datacenter proxies
Some providers offer datacenter proxies for free, and we understand the temptation to use such services. Yet, we advise you to stay away from free proxies because they’re not reliable enough. As such providers don’t control the usage of their services, proxies might be blacklisted by many websites. At bare minimum, you won’t be able to access the content you need. And if you’re using proxies for, say, social media management, you risk getting your accounts blocked.
Datacenter proxies use cases
The use cases for datacenter proxies are virtually unlimited. Here are the most popular ones:
Social media management
With datacenter proxies, you can manage multiple accounts and avoid getting banned. Social media platforms are trying to detect fake profiles. To reach this goal, platforms pay close attention to the IP address of each user.
When several different accounts have the same IP, it becomes clear that they’re fake. Therefore, the platform might ban both the profiles and the IP address. You can avoid this restriction by connecting to another datacenter proxy every time you log into another account.
Access geo-restricted content
Datacenter proxies allow you to fake your location as you pick up the IP address of the proxy server. If certain content is blocked in your country, you can simply connect to a datacenter proxy placed in the location you need. Then you’ll be able to access the website you’ve been going for.
Check the ads of your competitors
Using datacenter proxies, you can check the ads of your competitors for different target audiences. Simply change the countries to see where your rivals are trying to enter the market. This practice can offer many useful insights.
Extensive marketing research
Switching between datacenter proxies located in different countries, you can perform better research of the market and your competitors to see the bigger picture. The data you gather will let you build a more sustainable marketing strategy.
Academic research
There are quite many websites that limit the access for users from certain countries. If you encounter such a limitation during your research, you can simply connect to a datacenter proxy located in the required country to gain access to the content.
Additionally, data scientists may utilize datacenter proxies to do web scraping with focus on academic data. Although residential proxies would be the better tool for this job, datacenter proxies may be more attractive thanks to lower prices.
Ads confirmation
You can make sure that the ad campaigns you’ve set up to target audiences from different locations are getting displayed correctly. To do that, you can use datacenter proxies to pretend you’re from a different country and see the ads through the eyes of your target audience. Naturally, you can easily avoid ad fraud that way.
Resolve an IP address ban
Datacenter proxies will let you bypass restrictions if your IP address was banned by a certain website. Once you connect to a proxy server, you will pick up its IP and mask your real one with it. Therefore, the destination site won’t be able to tell that it’s you, the banned user, accessing the content.
Datacenter proxies for buying sneakers
There are several ways how datacenter proxies can help you buy the best sneakers. For example, online stores tend to show different prices for users from different locations. Therefore, by changing your IP address and, consequently, pretending that you’re in another country, you can see if there are lower prices.
Some sneaker brands sometimes release limited collections that are quite hard to get. And shops would sell only one pair to one buyer. Using datacenter proxies, you can pretend to be different buyers and get several pairs.
Also, proxies will be useful for special sneaker bots that will let you be among those lucky ones who managed to get a pair from the limited collection. Such bots require proxies to remain unnoticed by the online shop and avoid getting blocked.
How to create datacenter proxies?
The process is quite simple. All you need to do is to rent or buy a certain number of servers — depending on how many IPs you want to offer — and set them up as proxy servers. One server is one IP address that will be shared by everyone who connects to this proxy. And if you want to offer different locations, you’ll need to get servers from data centers in different countries.
The problem lies in the maintenance of proxy servers as you need them to be always accessible, protected, and configured correctly so that users don’t experience significant delays. That’s why we’re working hard on managing our proxy servers. As a result, Infatica’s datacenter proxies are reliable and fast.
How to use datacenter proxies?
First of all, you have to know how many IP addresses you need and from which countries they should be. If you struggle to understand your requirements, you can contact us, and we will analyze your needs to choose the best option. Then you can choose the pricing plan that fits you.
Infatica offers several plans that allow you to get as many IPs as you need while staying within your budget. Once you’ve chosen your plan, you’ll get access to datacenter proxies. Then the only thing you need to do is to pick the required location, connect to a proxy, and enjoy the unrestricted internet.
If you encounter any issues using Infatica’s datacenter proxies, we’re always ready to help you out. You can leave us a ticket describing your problem, and we will get back to you shortly. We will gladly help you out and answer any of your questions.
