Should You Rotate Your IP Address?

Data is the king of the 21^st century, and web scraping is one of the few ways to get it. However, just as you optimize your scraping tool for better efficiency, website and server owners are enhancing their detection and blocking services.

When scraping activities and requests come from a single IP address, servers can easily flag and block it. Hence, the need for rotating IP addresses. When you integrate your web scraper with rotating proxies, there’s a higher chance of scraping success in the long term. Now, let’s look at how you can maximize IP address rotation.

What is IP rotation?

IP address rotation involves changing a user’s device address at scheduled periods or randomly. IP rotation is common with ISPs, as they have more customers than IP addresses. So, when a user disconnects, the IP address returns to their IP pool and can be allocated to another user.

You can also intentionally execute IP address rotation as an individual or business. A rotating IP address intentionally, however, requires rotating proxies.

A rotating proxy changes your IP address whenever you make a new internet request. So, when you visit a website, you get an IP address. If you visit another website, your IP address changes. With a rotating proxy, even if you try to access a website from different tabs, the IP address registered on the website’s server will differ.

Rotating proxy services works in a way that makes it difficult for destination servers to know that multiple requests are coming from a single user. Without it, servers can easily flag multiple requests from scraping software and block access. But rotating proxies send requests using both residential and datacenter proxies.

Thanks to the rotating proxies’ modus operandi, users can easily bypass modern anti-bot systems without compromising on getting the target data. Even if an IP address from a rotating proxy gets blocked, a new request from the same user will have a new IP address.  

Rotating proxy services is advised for businesses that need to work with hundreds of proxies. Doing it manually can be time and resource-consuming. But for individuals, manual IP rotation is possible – handling the rotation by yourself.

As an individual, the first step towards manual IP rotation is accumulating private proxies. When you have these, here are the steps you should follow:

• Ensure your proxies are reliable. Make sure you’re getting your proxy from reliable providers.
• Create proxy groups. You’d divide the proxies into groups based on the number of proxies you need in each rotation. For starters, you can get about 100 proxies, then divide them into groups of 10. The efficiency of your IP rotation is directly proportional to the number of groups you create.
• After a while, when the first group feels overused, switch to the next group. Keep the cycle going.

Importance of IP rotation

For both businesses and individuals, there are several importance to IP rotation. Let’s look at some of them:

For businesses:

• Data extraction – is the chief reason for businesses to leverage IP rotation. As a business, you need to scrape the web. However, website owners have gotten innovative in preventing software from scouring their servers. Hence, you need IP proxy rotation, which makes it less likely that you will get blocked.

Also, it’s best to rotate proxies if you need data from different locations. You’ll get more accurate data when using the IP of the target country.

• SEO – Your SEO efforts must involve keeping tabs on stats in other countries. You can check keyword rankings in different locations and monitor performance analytics and metrics with IP rotation. You can also harness IP rotation to serve your ads to places outside your primary location.
• Privacy – IP rotation helps to keep your business computers safe from cybercriminals. It becomes hard to trace your activities.
• Research – businesses enter new markets regularly. However, it’s not smart to enter a new market blindly. Hence, research. Thanks to IP rotation, your business can access critical information about new markets and help better understand old, non-successful markets.
• Geo-targeting and price gouging are two common issues businesses face online. IP rotation can prevent these.

For individuals:

• Unmetered access: Several websites set up geographical restrictions on their content. Hence, if the content of interest isn’t available in your location, IP rotation can help you skirt the restriction.
• Privacy: Individuals who aren’t security savvy have their information exposed to the internet at an unprecedented rate. With IP rotation, you can keep your data safe.

Business use cases for IP rotation

Here are some use cases businesses can have for IP rotation:

● Price comparison

The world has become a global playground for businesses looking to cross into new frontiers. However, the economies of different countries vary. Hence, for global businesses, staying in tune with the financial details of target countries is important. IP rotation helps conduct price comparisons without restriction.

● Competitor research

As a global business, looking into local competitors at your target location can help discover loopholes in your strategy. And you shouldn’t do such research with the IP address of your company’s devices.

● Security

IP rotation can contribute massively to your business’ security measures, making it difficult for anyone to track your traffic.

Conclusion

IP proxy rotation works. Whether you do it manually or use a specialized service, it improves your online activities. You also need to learn about Piso Wifi 10.0.0.1 Pause Time.