Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is crucial for generating organic traffic from search engines. Today, search engines are that third force that determines whether your site will be visited by your target audience or not. And there are no alternatives to search engines. Less than ten IT companies are essentially monopolists, especially when it comes to specific niches and local markets. These are the well-known Google, Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo, for example.
It's not surprising why website owners strive to meet technical requirements and identify successful methods and practices that can provide advantages over competitors.
Search engines vaguely formulate their requirements and often talk about content quality, but in fact, site materials are indexed and ranked solely based on technical parameters and special algorithms.
How can businesses find successful promotion practices? Only by analyzing successful websites—those that are already at the top of search engines.
Below, we’ll discuss how proxy servers are related to SEO and talk about the best practices for using proxies in SEO optimization.
SEO proxies are proxies suitable for solving SEO tasks, namely for parsing competitors' websites and search engines.
SEO proxies are often used with specialized SEO software (software solutions) or SEO services (online tools operating in a cloud infrastructure).
It is important not to confuse SEO tools with SMM and SERM tools. They have different tasks and goals, although some implementations are technically very close, using parsing and proxies extensively.
How SEO proxies work: For example, you need to find empty/missing meta tags or duplicate titles on pages. All of this is crucial for proper promotion in search engines. Suppose a client has a huge website with several thousand pages. Manual analysis would take months. The obvious solution is to run a parser that will scan the pages, bypass all links, and compile its own site map, collecting titles and other meta tags for each page.
Here's a simple example: you need to find empty/missing meta tags or duplicate titles on pages. This is crucial for proper promotion in search engines.
Let’s say, a client has a massive website with several thousand pages. Manual analysis would take months. The obvious solution is to run a parser that will scan the pages, bypass all links and compile a sitemap, collecting titles and other meta tags from each page.
Suppose a client has a protection system organized at the server level and some external solutions. It cannot be simply turned off. A special script detects automated requests and bans clients by IP. To bypass such protection, you would need to initiate parsing through rotating proxies and the task would take a maximum of a couple of hours.
Similarly, the parsing of search results and competitors' sites works. Proxies allow bypassing protection systems and parallelizing the number of parsing streams.
Naturally, in some cases, additional tools may be required: headless browsers or even computer vision. Everything will depend on the website type and available protection mechanisms. Proxies, however, traditionally remain a key element to bypass blocks.
We compared proxies with their alternatives: VPN, Tor etc. For parsing tasks, proxies have no competitors.
SEO proxies differ from other proxy types primarily in their compatibility with specific SEO tools and their resistance to the protection mechanisms of search engines (especially when it comes to parsing organic search results).
Major search engines like Google take serious measures to filter out automated queries and parasitic loads, maintaining powerful defense systems and their own blacklists of IP addresses.
Rotating residential or mobile proxies are traditionally considered SEO proxies. Server proxies are less suitable for SEO - they are faster but more easily blocked during parsing.
In terms of protocol, HTTP/HTTPS proxies are most optimal. SOCKS proxies are also quite interesting as they can transmit HTTP traffic through them.
One of the most important proxy features for SEO tasks is the precision of targeting. The thing is, it's crucial to rotate proxies not just in a specific country or region, but in a particular locality. Search algorithms have become significantly more complex - they extensively personalize search results based on a client's location.
Listed below is a set of tasks commonly automated in SEO work:
These are all specialized scripts, comprehensive software solutions, universal parsers or ready-to-use online services.
Notably, many cloud-based tools allow clients to integrate their own proxy lists as clients often know best what types of IP addresses they need and where.
The primary advantage of any proxy server in parsing tasks is the ability to circumvent IP blockages. However, there are other benefits:
We have discussed proxy-related info to find out that it is impossible to go without them in SEO. The technical aspect, however, involves figuring out how to connect SEO proxies to your specific programs: parsers and services.
A common issue with old-school SEO tools is their handling of large proxy lists. Many specialized parsers and SEO utilities have built-in features to manage these lists, including import/export functions, operational checks and rotation for non-functional IPs.
However, with the advent of next-generation proxy services like Froxy, the focus has shifted more towards API interfaces and proxy ports.
A proxy port (filter) acts as a back connect server - a kind of an access point into a larger proxy network. Each proxy filter can be configured to operate based on specific logic:
For professional software, the proxy connection point remains constant, meaning the proxy connection might only need to be set up once with a single line of code. All other operations are managed on the proxy service's dashboard.
Requirements for integrating proxies with SEO tools typically include:
In some cases, descriptions and links for forced rotation can be added to the proxy (as in the Dolphin{Anty} anti-detect browser).
For outdated software that does not support login credentials, you might need to set up whitelists. This is done on the proxy service's side, in the user account, where access to the proxy is restricted only to a list of IP addresses from your devices - those on which the SEO software is installed.
When a large volume of traffic passes through proxies, the focus shifts towards monitoring and optimizing expenses. Most SEO utilities simply rotate proxies without actually calculating load or monitoring usage.
This functionality can be found either in the control panels of your proxy server or it can be organized through additional software solutions (proxy managers).
With Froxy, traffic use statistics are always visible. The more traffic you purchase in advance, the more cost-effective each gigabyte becomes.
Usage is calculated in terms of overall package consumption.
Adding a naming system for proxies can greatly enhance monitoring comfort by helping you easily understand where and for what tasks your traffic is being consumed.
No matter how large a proxy network is for rotation, it's crucial to adhere to specific rules and principles that reduce the likelihood of blocks.
We have collected the best practices in a separate material - Scrape Like a Pro. Here’s a brief overview related to SEO tasks:
Read more here: What to Do If Your IP Gets Banned While Scraping
SEO proxies are essential tools to solve SEO tasks. They come with unique features: they should rotate swiftly and you should have the capability to precisely select the location of outgoing IPs.
This matters a lot when it comes to parsing target sites and search engine sites, with an emphasis on specific regions and cities.
You can find the best proxies for SEO with us. Froxy offers over 10 million IPs with targeting options up to to the city and telecom provider level. Available features include an API, proxy filters and even an integrated parsing service. We offer rotatable residential and mobile proxies, with payment based on traffic consumption rather than the number of IPs.