What are Residential Proxies?

Trouble is, while the internet is a global community, many service providers will geo-lock content so you can only access it from certain countries. Moreover, if you’re trying to scrape data or use bots for social media or scripts for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), your IP address might get blocked and you won't be able to access the desired webpage.

Luckily, a residential proxy network is one of the effective ways to getting around these problems.

What is a residential IP?

A residential IP address is an IP address tied to a physical device, for example, a mobile phone or desktop computer.

Their real owners, Internet service providers, register residential IP addresses in public databases, which lets websites determine a device’s internet provider, network and location. Most online services recognize residential IP addresses as real people, as opposed to those who use data center IP addresses.

How do I get a residential IP address?

You can get a residential IP from various proxy providers. Some providers offer a list of IP addresses, while others, like us, offer endpoints. This is going to save you some hassle – there's no more need to import proxy lists, and there's almost zero chance you will get a proxy that doesn't work.

How do residential proxies work?

First, it’s important to note that residential proxies are different from datacenter proxies. Residential proxies are more reliable and more in demand, while datacenter ones are easier to block. Even though they are the cheaper option, you do get what you pay for. Let’s talk about the real MVPs – residential proxies.

This is how the residential proxy magic happens:

1. The proxies route your internet traffic through an intermediary server.
2. This server changes the IP address of your connection request.
3. Your IP is completely hidden, and you appear as a different yet completely normal user.

Residential proxies are exceptional because they are real mobile and desktop devices that are used as the intermediaries for your connections.

Why use a residential proxy network?

You might want to hide your IP address for various reasons. Or you might need to scrape data from several websites, run many accounts from the same machine, upload or download torrents via P2P connections, or stream geo-blocked content.

Whatever the case is, a residential proxy network is great for hiding your true online identity. It allocates genuine, residential IPs to you and hides your IP from servers for more online anonymity.

There is one snag, though – search engines will only allow you to make a specific number of requests from the same IP per minute. Thus, this type of single server set up can significantly limit your browsing options, and even get a ban if you exceed the rate you’re given. Luckily, our residential proxies come with advanced rotation, which does make it easier to get past this hiccup.

What are residential proxies used for?

Residential proxies can be used for market research, business automation, social networks, network penetration testing, and retail. Here’s some info about what you can really do with paid proxies:

• Market research: web scraping, ad verification, affiliate testing, SEO, and travel fare. Web scraping lets you collect all kinds of data to get ahead of your competitors – and do it fast. Ad verification helps you test and localize your ads while using real desktop and mobile IP addresses. Affiliate testing is easier than it looks – this is for checking localized affiliate content and whether it’s trustworthy or not. SEO proxies make it possible to conduct competitor research and look after your domain rating. Finally, travel fare aggregation will make your flight search engine soar with the right kind of data.
• Business automation: you need to meet changing market demands in order to stay ahead of other businesses. Luckily, you can use Smartproxy's residential IPs for data extraction, all kinds of automation processes, gathering business intelligence, and other use cases. Data center IP addresses are no match for real device IPs when it comes to competing for the highest market share. For your convenience, you can easily track your usage statistics in our dashboard!
• Social networks: this is a very popular reason why our users choose residential proxies. Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks are quite cautious, however, with the help of residential proxies, you can still create and manage multiple accounts, increase your following, and change your location without any restrictions.
• Retail: have you heard about sneaker bots? There’s a whole market for sneaker copping, and it’s outstandingly profitable. Sneaker proxies are the ones to go for if you want to start copping, but you can also unblock and scrape eBay, Shopify, and Craigslist if sneaker copping is not your cup of tea.

This is all great, but what about real-life examples? Do you want to hear more use cases from entrepreneurs, social media managers, and small startups that used a proxy service to make it? Well, we’re glad you asked. Some of our clients have shared their success stories with us, and we also put them up on our site.

What are rotating residential proxies?

Unlike regular residential proxies, which simply hide your real IP behind another IP, rotating residential proxies, also known as backconnect proxies, conceal you behind a pool of proxies. These proxies switch between themselves with every session or at regular intervals.

When you choose rotating proxies, your IP will continuously change. This way you can make as many requests as you like without getting flagged for suspicious activity.

For more information, check out our FAQs, or get in touch via live chat.

How to set up residential proxies

It really depends on the device of your choice. Nevertheless, this isn’t something you should worry about as our team is willing to help you at any time of day. We also have detailed setup guides that contain screenshots and other helpful info to make setup a breeze. If you want to use residential proxies for your own personal reasons, you can find a detailed guide that will help you integrate Smartproxy residential proxies into your mobile phone, desktop device, website, and extension. If you want to use our proxies for your business, you can use one of our residential proxy integrations and scripts.

Premium residential proxies for as low as $75 per month. Free trial included.