Using Proxy Servers for SEO Research

Using Proxy Servers for SEO Research
5 min read
07 February 2023

Proxy servers are essential helpers of the modern workplace environment. By rerouting access to the wide arena network (WAN) through an intermediary server proxy users unlock new ways and perspectives on the internet.

Once the user covers data packets with a different IP address, proxy servers bypass many restrictions that guide the individual browsing experience. With the freedom to connect through preferred access points, internet users enjoy the freedom of unlocking geo-blocked websites, connecting to the different versions of pages, adjusting for a new locale, and even checking the price changes in online shops, airlines, or travel websites. With just a few extra steps on your smart device, you become an internet user from a different country.

While the average web surfer sees most internet privacy tools as an option, proxy servers improve every business environment. Their benefits are often implemented for business tasks focusing on competitor research and digital marketing. Today, the hot topic of online advertisement is search engine optimization (SEO). Because most internet users look for products and information on Google and similar websites, modern companies are viciously competing for the top positions in search results.

In this article, we will go over the relationship between proxy servers and SEO research. Keep reading to learn more about the process, its most important data metrics, and how proxy servers lend a hand in their discovery and acquisition. From simple web scrapers to sophisticated SERP API, every automated tool that helps collect such information depends on proxy servers for IP address masking and rotation, which ensures the software does not reach the limit of connection requests. Search engine results pages, or SERP for short, display the success of businesses in climbing to the most relevant positions, and a good SERP API keeps an eye on the most recent information and ongoing changes in rankings. Check this blog article by Smartproxy to learn more about this tool and its importance for SEO research.

Data Collection from Search Engines

With the help of primitive web scrapers or sophisticated, multi-functional tools, we have two types of targets for data collection: competitor websites with constantly changing public information and search engine results. Ironically, every target that we plan to scrape will do the same to us but will oppose incoming scraping with connection request limits.

Scraping data from search engines is very difficult because the tech companies that built these marvelous creations do everything in their power to stop the average user or company from aggregating data from the platform. While it is the biggest hub of public information, allowing scraping bots to go rampant on Google, Bing or any other engine of your choice would be the end of the platform, as it already receives massive amounts of traffic. While greed is certainly a part of it, they have good reasons to use rate limiting and other preventive measures to diminish the effectiveness of bots.

Search engines and the information within them are the focal points of SEO research. The whole situation is problematic because the main source of public data is overprotective. Thankfully, with a good proxy provider that offers big pools of residential proxy IPs, you can use web scrapers, crawlers, keyword trackers, and other SEO research tools without restrictions. By splitting the connection into predetermined intervals for different IP addresses you can swap the identity before it attracts attention and flares up rate limiting.

The Focus for SEO research

At a first glance, it may seem that the SEO tools should have no trouble operating through the main IP address because why would you need to scrape so much information anyway? The whole process requires a continuous approach to data scraping, with the same repetitive extraction tasks completed many times a day, with link scraping and keyword tracking done tens of times on the search engine or competitor website, which already puts us in the danger zone for bot detection.

By understanding the most relevant keywords and their SERP rankings, modern companies watch and analyze every nook and cranny of organic traffic to their own website and pages of competitors, and understanding the rate at which positions shift is essential for building a strong base of backlinks and utilizing new, innovative SEO strategies for consistent growth and random jumps in popularity due to trending topics.

SEO research is a very data-heavy endeavor and the party that plans every step ahead to achieve the fastest, most effective rate of data extraction and analysis is on its way or already resides at top positions in their market. With many different approaches, companies can focus on the strengths and challenge the old-timers in their specific niche or focus on keywords for goods and services that grow in the demand either internationally or solely in the targeted region. At the end of the day proxy servers improve the effectiveness of SEO research tools and provide the ability to infiltrate the local market and analyze data tailored for internet users in the residing region.

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Alex 9.8K
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