Blazing SEO Introduces Mobile Proxy Plans: A Detailed Breakdown

American proxy provider Blazing SEO recently began offering mobile proxy plans, marking the company‘s second attempt to launch a mobile proxy service after a prior failed experiment. Although there was no official announcement, mobile proxies now prominently appear among Blazing SEO‘s products with a dedicated landing page.

According to the site, Blazing SEO‘s mobile proxies utilize 3G and 4G connections routed through the smartphones of end users. The IPs come from various major US mobile carriers, with T-Mobile and AT&T called out specifically. A key selling point is automatic rotation of IP addresses. But just how well do these plans stack up? Let‘s take an in-depth look.

What Makes Mobile Proxies Unique?

Before assessing Blazing SEO‘s offerings, it helps to understand why mobile proxies are special in the first place. Mobile proxies utilize IP addresses assigned to cellular carriers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. This provides several advantages compared to datacenter proxy services:

• Faster speeds – Mobile proxies offer far lower latency given the cellular nature of the connections. Pages load extremely quickly through mobile IPs.

• Larger IP pools – Top carriers have tens of millions of unique IPs. For example, AT&T alone controls over 30 million IPs. This scale ensures tremendous IP diversity.

• Avoid blocks – Websites are less likely to instantly blacklist IP blocks owned by legitimate carriers. This gives mobile proxies an edge.

• Ideal for web scraping – The ubiquitous changing of mobile IPs is perfect for avoiding bans when hammering sites with scrapers. Datacenter proxies can‘t match the scale and randomness of mobile IPs.

Research firm MarketsandMarkets estimates the mobile proxy market will grow from $429 million in 2022 to over $1 billion by 2027 as more businesses recognize these benefits. So what‘s the deal with Blazing SEO‘s long-awaited mobile offerings?

Blazing SEO‘s Mobile Proxy Plans and Pricing

Blazing SEO is currently advertising three monthly mobile proxy plans based on data usage:

• Starter – 2 GB for $50 ($25 per GB)
• Business – 30 GB for $300 ($10 per GB)
• Enterprise – 40 GB for $600 ($15 per GB)

These rates are very competitively priced compared to other mobile proxy vendors like BrightData ($20 per GB), Smartproxy ($15 per GB), and Oxylabs ($45 per GB). However, the frequent automatic IP rotation may not make Blazing SEO‘s proxies well suited for use cases beyond web scraping and similar activities needing constant IP changes.

Configuring Your Web Scrapers to Leverage Blazing SEO‘s Mobile Proxies

To leverage Blazing SEO‘s mobile proxies, you‘ll first need to sign up for one of their plans and obtain the necessary authentication credentials. Here are the basic steps to get started:

1. Choose the Blazing SEO plan that best fits your monthly scraping needs. The Business plan with 30GB for $300 is a good starting point for most.

2. Retrieve the gateway IP address, username, and password Blazing SEO provides after signing up.

3. Configure your web scraper or scraping tool to route through Blazing SEO‘s IPs using the username/password authentication they provide.

4. Set the proxy rotation period based on your preferences. Aggressive 5 minute rotations are good for heavily monitored sites. For moderately monitored sites, 15-30 minutes may be sufficient.

5. Integrate your scraper with an IP rotation library like ProxyBroker to automatically rotate the proxies per the configured period.

6. Run tests to identify and troubleshoot any potential issues before launching at scale.

Compared to configuring your own residential proxies, Blazing SEO‘s mobile proxies handle the complex proxy management and rotation for you automatically.

Ideal Use Cases for Blazing SEO‘s Mobile Proxy Plans

The high rate of IP rotation makes Blazing SEO‘s mobile proxies perfect for circumventing anti-scraping protections when harvesting data from restrictive sites. Beyond just scraping, mobile proxies can excel at other use cases as well:

• Price monitoring – Track prices across ecommerce sites or airfare booking platforms while avoiding blocks.

• Market research – Collect pricing, product, and availability data from multiple competitor sites.

• Ad verification – Confirm ads are running properly across search engines and social media platforms by mimicking mobile users.

• Brand monitoring – Check review sites and forums for mentions of a brand while avoiding detection.

• App testing – Test mobile apps and sites with various mobile carriers and geography targeting.

Mobile proxies open up possibilities not achievable with datacenter IPs for these types of use cases where blocks are commonplace.

How Blazing SEO‘s Mobile Plans Measure Up to Top Competitors

Blazing SEO‘s mobile proxy solutions stack up very favorably against competitors when it comes to pricing, but limitations exist around features:

Provider	Starting Pricing	Bandwidth Allowance	Location Targeting	Carrier Targeting
Blazing SEO	$25/GB	High	No	No
Oxylabs	$45/GB	Very High	Yes	Yes
BrightData	$20/GB	Moderate	Yes	No
Smartproxy	$15/GB	High	No	No

While very affordable, Blazing SEO lacks advanced location and carrier targeting available from vendors like Oxylabs. But for basic web scraping needs, their competitive pricing can‘t be beat.

What Are the Major Mobile Carriers Used?

Blazing SEO specifically called out leveraging IP addresses from major US carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. Analyzing IP whois records show their IP ranges include:

• AT&T Mobility – Owns 75.0.0.0/8 (~16 million IPs) and 38.0.0.0/8 (~4 million IPs) ranges.

• T-Mobile – Controls 210.0.0.0/8 (~16 million IPs) and 166.0.0.0/8 (~4 million IPs).

Between just AT&T and T-Mobile, Blazing SEO has access to tens of millions of unique IP addresses – essential for successful web scraping at scale while avoiding anti-scraping blocks.

Potential Limitations to Keep in Mind

While Blazing SEO‘s mobile proxy plans are very affordably priced, some limitations exist that users should be aware of:

• IP rotations may be too frequent for some use cases – Many activities like ad verification require more stable IPs, making BlazingSEO‘s constantly rotating IPs potentially problematic.

• Lack of transparency around IP diversity – Blazing SEO doesn‘t disclose details about number of unique IPs or geographic distribution.

• Mobile carriers can still block abuse – If Blazing SEO‘s IPs are repeatedly abused, carriers like AT&T can still blacklist them.

• No advanced targeting features – Unlike Oxylabs and BrightData, Blazing SEO lacks advanced location, carrier, and device targeting capabilities.

So while the affordable pricing is enticing, power users should understand the limitations versus more premium mobile proxy solutions. Blazing SEO‘s offerings are ideal for occasional web scraping for basic needs.

Expert Tips for Using Mobile Proxies Ethically & Avoiding Abuse

When utilizing mobile proxies, you should always make sure to use them responsibly and ethically. Here are tips from experts:

"Check your web scraping tool and make sure it has built-in safeguards against overusing proxies or hammering sites too aggressively," suggests Ryan Witt, a senior engineer at BrightData. "Often tools need their delays and concurrency tuned to match the scale of your proxy service."

"Monitor the sites you are scraping and your overall usage to make sure you aren‘t creating an excessive burden," says web scraping consultant Alyssa Marker. "Distribute your sessions across many IPs and moderate your requests. Slow down or stop if asked."

"Never use mobile proxies for unethical purposes like credential stuffing or skirting usage limits in mobile apps," warns Adam Dubois, head of ScrapingBee. "That will result in IPs getting quickly banned as well as potential legal issues."

Following acceptable use restrictions, minimizing burden, and scraping ethically will keep your mobile proxy IPs in good standing.

Troubleshooting Tips If Your Mobile Proxies Stop Working

Even with a reliable mobile proxy provider like Blazing SEO, you may occasionally encounter issues like IPs getting banned or blocking occurring. Here are some tips to identify and fix problems:

• Lower session concurrency – Reduce the number of parallel scraper requests to see if it resolves blockages.

• Increase IP rotation frequency – If IPs are getting banned rapidly, switch to more aggressive 5 minute or less rotations.

• Temporarily pause scraping – Stop requests for several hours and try again later to allow sites time to cool off.

• Switch up user agents – Vary the browser user agents used with each request to make traffic seem more human.

• Contact support – If problems persist, reach out to Blazing SEO‘s customer support for assistance investigating issues.

With the right troubleshooting and tweaks, you can overcome errors and get your mobile proxy solutions humming again.

Final Thoughts on Blazing SEO‘s Mobile Proxy Offerings

Blazing SEO‘s long-awaited entry into the mobile proxy market brings competitively priced solutions perfect for occasional web scraping and data harvesting needs. The IP addresses from major carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile provide reliable bandwidth from legitimate sources less prone to blocking.

While the aggressive rotating nature limits uses for other activities, the affordability factor makes Blazing SEO‘s mobile proxies worth considering if you need to occasionally scrape sites that ban datacenter IPs. As with any proxy provider, make sure to use their services ethically.

If your web scraping needs are more advanced, requiring location targeting or finely tuned proxy configurations, a more premium vendor may be a better fit albeit at a higher price. But for basic scraping use cases, Blazing SEO‘s mobile proxy plans strike an compelling balance of price and performance.