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What residential proxies are for, and why your luxury business needs one

Residential proxies are alternative IP addresses assigned to users by providers, and work by routing internet traffic through an intermediary server.

By LLM Reporters   |  

In 2022, a growing number of us are working from home, or away, with the global pandemic having sparked a dramatic increase in the number of those logging on remotely and connecting from sun loungers and sofas across the globe. If you’re one of the many luxury business owners who has adopted this model of late, then you’re no doubt still finding your feet with how to do this well – ensuring that employees across different time zones are synchronised in their productivity times and that everyone can connect safely and efficiently from wherever they are.

With internet crime at an all-time high, online security is a particular concern, and where sensitive data is concerned, keeping it safe from hackers and cyber criminals can be a very real worry that many business owners are continuing to struggle with.

Remote workers often rely on public Wi-Fi connections to log on and do some work, but these can be particularly vulnerable to hackers. But there does seem to be a solution, and increasingly, we’re turning to residential proxies to do the legwork for us. Allowing users to choose a specific location and connect to the internet as a local user by masking their IP addresses and providing alternatives, a static residential proxy is a great way to conceal real-life locations and thus, make it more difficult for attackers to gain access to your online activities.

But beyond simply offering enhanced security, residential proxies are a useful tool that could also help you to get ahead in business. If they’re a new concept to you, then here’s all you need to know about them, including why your luxury business needs one sooner, rather than later.

How do residential proxies work?

Residential proxies are alternative IP addresses assigned to users by providers, and work by routing internet traffic through an intermediary server. By doing so, they conceal employees’ identities and keep them anonymous whilst working online.

Residential proxies
Residential proxies are alternative IP addresses assigned to users by providers, and work by routing internet traffic through an intermediary server

What are residential proxies used for?

Because they are generally considered more trustworthy than other types of available proxy servers, residential proxies are favoured by those looking for the most robust type of protection whilst working online. But they aren’t just great for security purposes and could also give you the upper hand when it comes to staying one step ahead of your competitors, too. Here are some of the most common reasons you may consider investing in residential proxies for your remote staff.

Web scraping

In today’s highly competitive world, keeping tabs on the competition is more important than ever, and web scraping is a popular technique that allows you to gather and assess key performance information so that you can see where your business could be improved. A web scraper supports mass scraping by allowing you to rotate IPs on a continuous basis, which is only possible with a residential proxy – so if you don’t have one yet, then you could be missing a trick when it comes to business growth.

Ad tracking

Online advertising is big business in 2022, and many brands are investing heavily in their digital marketing strategies and devising tailored ads to speak directly to their target customer base. But as the number of legitimate online ads continues to grow, so too does the quantity of suspicious ads, and your competitors may seek to damage your brand’s reputation by running unauthorised variations in your company’s name. Spotting them can be tricky without a little extra help, but a residential proxy server is a handy tool for the tracking and verification of ads and ensuring compliance.

google search
Online advertising is big business in 2022, and many brands are investing heavily in their digital marketing strategies and devising tailored ads to speak directly to their target customer base. Image credit: troyanphoto/Bigstock.com

Price monitoring

Keeping your prices competitive is essential in order to keep clients coming your way and failing to keep abreast of what the competition is doing in this respect could be detrimental to your luxury business’s long-term success. A residential proxy server allows users to monitor market prices across the online space by gathering and analysing available data and will save you a lot of the legwork required to try and do this manually.

SEO monitoring

In this day and age, many online businesses rely on a robust SEO strategy to stay ahead, and with the help of a residential proxy server, you can instantly gather the competitor data that’s needed to keep tweaking and improving yours. The online space is a fast-moving one, and it’s no longer possible to simply create a strategy and leave it to run as is. You’ll need to keep on assessing and making small changes to avoid falling behind, and a tool like this is fundamental in facilitating that process.