Free Tools Friday: Free Proxy Tools
Friday, July 2, 2010 6:04As I work on building more and more backlinks to my sites, I am increasingly finding that it is useful to be able to use different proxies when registering for forums and setting up multiple accounts at different sites. For example, some social bookmarking sites will ban someone who makes too many posts from the same IP addresses. Similarly, you often can not register for the same forums twice using the same IP address.
For a long time I avoided using proxies since I associated it with “black hat” kinds of activities. And it is true that proxies can allow you to do a lot of “naughty” things on the internet. However, I would characterize most of my methods as being on the “light-gray hat” side of things (or light-grey for my UK friend). Now, I don’t really want to get into moralizing or justifying white, gray or black hat stuff here, but I will say that in my opinion any attempt to increase your rankings through link building is “gray hat.” So, if you are writing EzineArticles with the purpose of generating backlinks to your websites, you are engaged in manipulating search engine results and are engaged in gray hat techniques. However, that said, I personally avoid engaging any link building techniques that are harmful, deceptive or just plain annoying (for example, I hate blog comment spam, so I don’t do it myself).
I was able to get by on not using proxies for quite a while, but now it is more of an issue of scale than an issue of my level of “naughtiness.” As I build more and more sites, I find myself visiting a lot of the same social bookmarking sites and forums over and over again. While this was not an issue when I had on a couple of dozen sites, now that I’m approaching fifty websites, it is starting to become a problem. So here are a couple of my favorite free proxy tools that I am now using:
1. The Simple Proxy Scraper. This has to be my favorite proxy tool. It is super quick and easy to use and was developed by Steve Hawkins, the creator of SEO Link Dominator (which allows you to fly through forum profile backlink packets) and SEO Fast Indexer (a very affordable and easy to use tool to help get your back links indexed quickly). It is completely free to use, although you do have to provide an email to receive the download link.
To see an example of how the Simple Proxy Scraper works, watch this short video below:
2. Foxy Proxy. This is another great proxy tool if you use Firefox for your browser. Foxy Proxy is a free Firefox extension that allows you quickly and automatically switch between proxy servers while surfing the internet. You will find a lot of support information on their website on how to set it up, but if you are still lost, check youtube for some FoxyProxy setup videos as well.
Also, for those of you who don’t use Firefox, or just want to know how to change your proxy in your browser by hand, there is a great thread over at (unsurprisingly) the black hat forum. You can find the post here.
Now go and have fun… but not too much fun! 
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Yolanda @ Paid in Passive says:
July 2nd, 2010 at 7:39 am
Michelle,
Private proxies certainly have their place, and “blackhat” or not, they are necessary if you’re going to be registering accounts on a large scale basis.
However, I did want to add that when it comes to “Free Proxies,” I tend to shy away from these because they are typically used to spam websites to death (since they’re free), and when I come along and use a free proxy, I unfortunately find that I’m banned or my “IP” is banned before I can even get to work.
…well that actually happened about 2 years ago, and now I use Cloakfish exclusively for private, truly anonymous proxies. It’s a paid service, but given my needs now, I only pay $9 for the month and receive 4 unique IP addresses per day — just enough for my needs. (Previously when I worked with Craigslist I needed more than this.)
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Michelle says:
July 2nd, 2010 at 11:01 am
One of the reason I like the Simple Proxy Scraper a little better than FoxyProxy is because it scrapes “fresh” proxies for you they are less likely to have been banned. But I have been thinking about finding a private proxy service just like you have suggested. I imagine once I get scrapebox, having more reliable proxies will be key. Right now, I find that most of the proxies scraped by this tool are valid for anywhere between a few hours up to a few weeks, but I do need to continually check them. Thanks for the tip!
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Dan N says:
July 2nd, 2010 at 11:13 am
Thank you for providing an alternative to finding some free proxy servers for non-Firefox users; I found myself using more and more Google’s Chrome (like I am not using enough of their free tools already
. If I could find a Chrome alternative for tools like SEO for Firefox and the SEO Doctor, I’ll probably give up on Firefox altogether since it seems to be so slow compared with Chrome. That being said, I just started my backlinking activity, and I am probably in no danger to be rejected by forum admins any time soon, but I’ll store these information for future use.
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Yolanda @ Paid in Passive says:
July 2nd, 2010 at 1:04 pm
@ Michelle: I’ll definitely need to check out Simple Proxy Scraper, because FoxyProxy is a no go for me.
Also, have you tried Hotspot Shield? That’s also another great alternative and you can switch your IP address with much more ease.
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JamestheJust on Elance says:
July 5th, 2010 at 2:12 am
I was using MyPrivateProxy for a while, but realized that my scale was nowhere near to justifying it (I think it’s around $29/month?) — they give you 10 proxies a month.
I’ve heard that public proxies are also gateways for viruses and whatnot, so I’d recommend a private service.
And Yo! I was using CL for my first site, made a bunch of ads, and somehow…they let me dole out advertisements in every single city I pleased. No ban, no consequence, and no proxy.
I tried that on the same computer with another email: banned! Not sure why that was. Whatev’.
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Michelle says:
July 5th, 2010 at 7:46 am
You know, I’ve never had any problems using scraped proxies – but sure, private proxies do have many advantages. You can learn a lot about finding good private proxies over at the Black Hat Forum, of course.
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JamestheJust on Elance says:
July 5th, 2010 at 9:08 am
I think the key would be the source of the proxies and the age, as you mentioned earlier. Thanks for the post – I’m wondering when the eBook is coming out on your free software tips!
Will have to take your advice on the BHF and the scraper you’ve noted. I was wondering why it’s so cheap? Same with SEO Link Dominator (btw: don’t do a search for that without the “SEO” on it…ew…). Have you used SEOLD with much success?
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