Well, this might remind you of the popular album from Michael Orendy, aka Frankel. But that’s pretty much the situation today among Internet users. They call it with different names like ‘altering IP addresses’ or ‘using VPNs (virtual private network)’ or ‘surfing anonymously’; the fact is these are no secret to the Internet savvy era of today. People do it all the time these days and the primary reasons for hiding their identity and location are privacy and accessibility.Anonymity Is The New Fame:There are several other reasons why Internet users love to use proxy servers. Some use it for accessing websites and content that are restricted to specific locations, some use it to beat Internet Censorship while others use it to be anonymous or maintain privacy when working with sensitive documents. A popular review of different VPN services shows you that ExpressVPN, IPVanish and Hidemyass are popular options for hiding your IP address.But Why Is It Being Used In The SEO Industry?Like others, people in the SEO industry use VPN connections to hide or alter their IP addresses. But why would they do this? Here are some reasons why SEO analysts love to use proxy servers.1.) To Access, Analyze And Check Competitor Websites:SEO specialists have been developing several tools to spy or measure their competitor’s growth, success level and also to study the reasons for their failures. Such has been the importance of analyzing your competitor’s activities. However, you need to be careful when spying your rival’s business activities. The webservers of your competitors may log your IP address and store them, helping your competitor trace your activities. When you use a proxy server, your real identity is hidden and you will continue to be safe.2.) If You Have Outsourced Your Aocial Media Activities:Social media agencies use numerous Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts on behalf of their clients, to promote different websites and services. Even though your agency may be working genuinely on your behalf, using many different accounts from the same IP address may prove fatal. Their legitimate activities may be detected as spamming and your account may be blocked by the respective social media platform.On the other hand, when a social media promoter routes each of his client’s social media activities through unique proxy servers, the whole process looks natural. This is because of one simple reason – the activities come from different IP addresses.3.) SEO Agencies That Query Search Engines:SEO agencies whose activities happen in the same office network, especially those that use different keyword ranking software can easily be a victim of search engine penalization (more often Google Penalty). Search engines penalization may be severe at times. IP addresses may be blocked preventing you from doing further inquiries. IP blocking software hides your query chain.4.) To Show Up As If You Are From Another Country:Many search engines and websites offer different content to different countries. These search engines and websites determine your region by checking commercial Geo-IP database and detecting your IP address. Google is known to use its own proprietary algorithms for checking user’s location and IP address.There are many SEO tools, software and packages like the Advanced Web Ranking, Rank Tracker and WebCEO that can tweak parameters sent to Google, making it look as if you are from the location you claim to be. SEO reports have shown mixed results with these tools and software.Time and again, SEO Gurus have insisted that Google seeks to ‘personalize’ results and often determines your IP address for SERP personalization. Hence, more and more SEO promoters have started using proxy servers based on the countries they live in and the business/service they do for.Are There Any Negative Effects On Your SEO?Good news! According to many SEO experts, the impact of altering IP addresses has very minimal effect on your website’s SEO. LeadQual, a popular US-based marketing agency recently shifted their website to a new hosting service. The company has claimed that they have been carefully monitoring their search engine rankings ever since they made the shift, and noticed no signs of decline in their rankings. On the contrary, LeadQual has announced a slight improvement in their rankings.There are many other examples of online businesses that reveal similar stories. In all the cases, rankings were either not affected at all or have witnessed slight improvement owing to faster servers.So, if ever you’ve been concerned about using proxy servers for various SEO activities in your business, hope this article would have enlightened you. All the best !!About the Author:Kathryn Smith is a tech and military blogger who contributes and shares her experience on different blogging platforms. She loves to study and write about the military during her spare time. . Of late, she has been collecting various sources for Military Practice Quiz to help the young and budding National Heroes.Find Me On GooglePlus | Facebook | Twitter
