Chris Roark
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Because of a large number of private proxy providers and the multitude of proxy packages, buying the right ones for your business is not an easy task. This is why we have created this short guideline on how to buy cheap private proxies for your online projects. First, we will start by exploring what are cheap proxies, how they are used and finally, we will consider where can you actually buy them.
What are cheap private proxies
Cheap private proxies are usually shared proxies. This means they are shared between several users at the same time. This also means that both the proxy’s performance and costs are shared between these users. This also means that they are less performant than virgin private proxies or dedicated ones.
It might look like an issue for some of you, but depending on how these proxies are used, being shared and cheaper could actually be an advantage over using expensive virgin ones.
How cheap private proxies are used
There are several ways in which cheap private proxies are used. However, one thing to note is that they are not used to connect accounts to online platforms. This is why you will never see cheap private proxies used with social media accounts or with sneaker proxies.
Generally, cheap private proxies are used for SEO tasks and SEO tools. Or for scraping online data. In other words, they are used for projects and tasks where login is not required.
For SEO, cheap shared private proxies are used for either scraping search engines or for performing SEO tasks such as blog commenting or forum posting. However, while the validity of these tasks and their success in raising the SEO score of a website is questionable, cheap private proxies are a requirement. This is because these tasks are very intensive and the software employed will perform several hundred or thousands of tasks per minute. And if all these tasks are targeting the same domain, without private proxies, it is a matter of seconds until the IP address of the server originating the requests is banned. So, in other words, we can think of proxies are being used for solely diverting the requests for not banning the IP address or the originating server.
For scraping, the same reasons for using proxies stand true. The number of requests processed by the online servers of the scraped domain is very large, so in order to avoid any bans or putting a strain on the scraped domain, scrapers use a combination of private proxies and timeouts. In this way, the requests are slowed down to a more manageable number and, at the same time, they are sent through various IP address [proxies].
What are semi dedicated proxy IPs?
You might have heard about cheap private proxy sold as semi dedicated proxy IPs. They are the same thing – servers whose IP addresses are not dedicated and used by one single user, but several users at the same time.
There are no other custom or special features about semi-dedicated proxies. They are the same thing as any cheap shared proxy.
So, next time you see them advertised at certain providers, do not think about them as a hybrid between cheaper ones and dedicated ones, because they are not.
Providers, in order to get in front of their customers and stand out, need to promote their services as unique, custom-built or “special”. But, let me tell you that in this industry, there is nothing special about most providers.
Almost all of them sell shared, private and even VPNs. So, tech-wise or server-wise, there is no such thing as a semi-dedicated server. This is just a marketing trick.
Server-wise there are only shared and dedicated ones. That’s all. There’s nothing in between. So do not expect to buy cheap proxies labeled as “semi dedicated” with a “special” configuration, as there is none.
Where to buy cheap private proxies
In simple terms, every proxy provider offers one type or another of cheap private proxies. From shared proxies or semi-dedicated proxies to SEO or rotating proxies, all these are variations of the same cheap private proxies used by several users at the same time.
If you plan on buying cheap private proxies, there are three ways of finding them. First, you can Google for shared proxies, within the first two pages you will find enough providers to research and have an educated guess of which one is the best one for your online projects.
Second, you can go on online forums, such as BlakcHatWorld, that have a proxy providers section. Here you will find several providers as well.
And finally, you could find proxy providers on review websites like bestproxyproviders. Here you will find several providers and proxies split into categories as well unbiased reviews of these providers.
