With e-commerce booming and digital marketing becoming the dominant mode of building customer engagement, more and more companies are taking their business operations online in the pursuit of growth and success. As a result, the digital space has become a fiercely competitive place for developing companies, and what were once marginal advantages are now considerably more consequential. This has brought the importance of insight-driven decision-making to the fore, with companies worldwide now embracing data collection from inception.
While the need and desire for effective data collection are at an all-time high, however, many companies are experiencing pushback when trying to gather key data through web scraping. Chiefly, this is due to the proliferation of anti-scraping measures, as businesses the world over seek to block their competitors from gathering the data they need to be competitive. Naturally, this can be a real stumbling block when trying to build momentum with a new digital business, but it is possible to overcome this challenge by leveraging backconnect proxies.
In this article, we’ll discuss backconnect proxies and web scraping, outlining how the former empowers the latter in digital business.
The role of backconnect proxies
A backconnect proxy is a specific type of proxy server. As with all proxies, backconnect proxies give users the ability to redirect their traffic through a server in another geographical location. In doing so, they make it possible to mask one’s IP address and use the Internet with anonymity.
A key aspect of backconnect proxies is that they use pools of IP addresses which can be rotated on request. This means that should you experience an IP block for one reason or another when using a backconnect proxy, you can rotate to another IP to circumvent it.
Notably, backconenct proxies typically use residential IP addresses. These are IPs assigned to users by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). As such, they are connected to specific physical devices, rather than cloud servers, unlike other proxy IPs like datacenter IPs. For this reason, residential IPs are less likely to incur blockages, making them a reliable option for business purposes.
Understanding web scraping
Web scraping is a data extraction technique which is used by businesses around the world. The process involves using automated tools to glean publicly-available data from other websites. The technique is used for a number of different purposes.
The most typical use of web scraping is to conduct market research. It is common for companies to employ web scraping as a way of gathering data about competing products or services in their market. This can include product details, pricing information, user feedback, and more, depending on what is required. Then, using data analysis, companies can leverage such data to gain valuable insights into market trends, customer preferences, and pricing practices to devise more comprehensive marketing strategies.
Likewise, it’s common for businesses to use web scraping to help them generate new leads. This is particularly useful in B2B operations, as companies can scrape corporate sites to quickly collect the details of those who are most likely to be interested in their products or services.
All told, web scraping is a highly useful technique that can help businesses to drive their growth, so being able to conduct the process effectively is of critical importance.
How backconnect proxies facilitate effective scraping
Backconnect proxies enable facilitate effective data collection by enabling companies to bypass anti-scraping measures. When trying to perform scraping with a normal IP or single-IP proxy, it’s common to encounter problems because websites can detect when a particular IP is sending a volume of data requests and subsequently block that IP. This problem can be further exacerbated if using datacenter proxies, as they appear less authentically and are more likely to be blocked.
However, because backconnect proxies give you the ability to rotate between residential IPs, blocks occur less regularly and can be bypassed immediately. This means that you can gather data more quickly and efficiently with backconnect proxies. As a result, you can analyze data more quickly, devise more resonant marketing strategies and roll them out earlier to gain considerably more return on your efforts. All the while, backconnect proxies protect your device’s IP so as to provide protection against cyber threats that stem from IP tracking.
Conclusion
When operating a business in the increasingly competitive digital space, you must embrace data-driven decision-making if you are to succeed, and that means conducting effective data scraping. With backconnect proxies, you can overcome the challenges associated with web scraping to perform secure and reliable data collection, devise more effective market strategies, and achieve more meaningful growth with your business.
