Proxies are the newest in-thing. You’ve likely heard of them from TV shows and movies as tools hackers and programmers use, which is why you might be surprised to learn that proxies are commercially available. You might be even more shocked to know that they have several viable use cases in the world of business. If you’re new to the proxy world, fret not. In this article, we’ll be going over five ways a proxy can take your business to the next level.
What are proxies, and how do they work?
To put it simply, a proxy server is the middleman between end-user clients and the destinations they browse. When your device connects to a server to access a site on the web, it exchanges its IP address with the server. Your IP address is essentially like a house address; it’s unique to your device and can be used to identify you.
As the middleman, proxies receive your web requests and forward them to your intended destination. When they receive a response, they collect it and send it back to you. This prevents your IP address from being revealed to anyone. Instead, your proxy’s IP address is revealed, and since this address can be changed easily, it provides you with a convenient means of browsing the web safely.
How a proxy can change your business:
- It can get your business noticed on YouTube.
YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet. Its monthly search volume is greater than the likes of Bing, Yahoo and AOL combined. So, if you want more business, you need to get on YouTube.
In the beginning, however, you might find it hard to gain traction. After all, you will be competing for airtime with millions of other content creators who are posting videos daily. If you want any feasible returns from your YouTube endeavours, you’ll have to look into a YouTube proxy.
You’ll need to get quite a few subscribers and views to get the YouTube algorithm to notice your content and begin recommending it to potential customers. This is where a YouTube proxy comes in. With a YouTube proxy from Smartproxy, you can easily set up a sticky IP session for your YouTube channel and allow automated YouTube “sub bots” to start subscribing to other channels. These bots will increase the number of likes, views and comments your videos get without any additional work on your part.
The increased number of views, subscribers and likes combined will signal to the YouTube algorithm that your content is high-quality, leading to them promoting your videos across their site. Guess who’s getting more business now?
- It can provide you with anonymity online.
You’d be surprised at just how much privacy a proxy can get you. Proxies are trusted by whistle-blowers, reporters and security officers to protect their sources and identities online.
A good proxy service can help you hide your IP address and location completely, enabling you to look like you’re browsing from a completely different device in a foreign country.
This means you can transfer sensitive financial information over your internet network without worrying about a hacker intercepting your connection and stealing your data.
- It can control your employee’s internet usage.
Most companies use a proxy server to prevent their employees from accessing unsavoury websites or, worse still, websites that could harm your business. When you route your internet traffic through a proxy server, you’ll be able to control the sites your employees can visit and even what devices they can use to access your website.
This feature can be especially useful for your network administrators since they can use the proxy to monitor your employees’ search activity and be on the lookout for any breaches.
- It can increase the speed of your network.
One of the most common misconceptions about proxies is that they slow down your internet connection. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
A high-quality proxy can increase your current internet speed by caching web pages and commonly used files, freeing up your bandwidth and compressing traffic so your employees can browse the web faster and get more things done.
Did we mention a proxy will even block ads on websites you visit?
- It can balance traffic to prevent server crashes.
What do customers hate more than higher prices? Waiting.
When your entire business is online, your website going down is the equivalent of you closing down for the day. Proxy servers and the use of cloud data storage can prevent this from happening. Your website’s information and contents will be stored across servers in different parts of the globe, allowing your network to handle increased traffic loads. With a proxy server, your customers will still be able to reach your website using your single web address.
