Are you looking for proxies for testing links and verifying geo-targeted content and ads? Then stick to this page to discover the best proxies you can use for link testing.
Overview: Best Link Testing Proxies for Affiliate
- Bright Data: 72+ million IPs in Pool – <Starts from $300 for 20GB | $15 per GB> – Best Overall Proxies for Link Testing
- Soax: 5+ million IPs in Pool – <Starts from $75 for 5GB | $15 Per GB > – Clean Proxy Pool for Affiliate Link Testing
- Smartproxy: 40+ million IPs in Pool – <Starts from $75 per 5GB | $15 Per GB> – Best Proxies in terms of Performance and Speed for Link Testing
- Shifter: 31+ million IPs in Pool – <Starts from $249 for 10 ports | $25 per port> – Unlimited Bandwidth Proxies for Link Testing
- Proxyrack: 2+ million IPs in Pool – <Starts from $80 for 100 threads | $0.80 per thread>- Regular Proxies with Unmetered Bandwidth and no Limit to Number of IPs you can use
As an affiliate marketer, advertiser, or even a website owner, testing of URLs is quite an important task as that would reveal information that you would need to improve your workflow, detect bad affiliate links, dead URLs, reveal malicious websites, test for geo-location targeting, website localization, and website uptime.
When testing URLs, proxies will provide your IP addresses from locations other than the location that you are, making it possible to access localized content, mimic actions by different users, and see how websites react to different users depending on their location.
While any working proxy server can be used for URL testing, if a proxy server cannot provide you as many IP addresses as you want and does not have IPs from many locations across the globe, then its working is highly limited. In this article, we would be recommending proxies you can use for your entire link testing campaigns.
The providers recommended are residential proxy providers with a sizable number of IPs in their pool, supports a good number of locations, and are quite reliable, secure, and fast. Before going into the recommendation, we would be looking at an overview of link testing and why proxies are required.
Why is Link Testing?
Link testing, otherwise known as URL testing, is the process of putting a URL or group of URLs to test to see how they appear to regular Internet users. A URL is just a pointer to online content and what you are actually testing is not the URL string but the content it is linked to.
Testing URLs is quite important if you are a website developer, as you could reveal some technical details such as security loopholes since URLs can be manipulated for malicious reasons and intents. Some website owners could use link testing to detect bad links, redirection, or even get alerted when their web property is down.
The above is not all; there are many more use cases of link testing. One of such is website localization testing which is testing to see how a certain page appears to users depending on their location.
You can also use it in affiliate marketing to detect affiliate fraud, bad affiliate links, and how users are treated by affiliate companies based on their locations. While verifying URLs can be done manually, in most cases, it is done in an automated manner to increase workflow and save time.
Why are Proxies Required for Link Testing?
Does link testing require proxies? The answer is a yes and no, depending on some factors. But basically, if you want to test a URL and there’s no locational requirement in your test, and you won’t be sending too many requests to the web server, then you do not need proxies. However, if there is a locational undertone to your test, then you need proxies.
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Test Geo-Targeting Support
Let say you developed a website that integrates location and content geo-targeting, and you want to check how it appears to users in a certain location other than the location you are, you will need to make use of proxies. This is because IP addresses have geo-locations attached to them, and that is used as the geo-location of the Internet user they are assigned to.
Also important is the fact that affiliate websites have different content for different locations, and as such, you need to verify if the content shown to your audience is the right content depending on their location.
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Affiliate Fraud Detection
Aside from the locational reason, proxies are also required if you want to test affiliate links. Your affiliate partner might be committing fraud, and you do not know. Some do not record hits and sales.
What better way to test that than to use proxies and send a bunch of hits, then make a purchase with one to see how the record would be recorded for you by the affiliate partner.
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Website Performance
Testing the performance of a website without getting blocked is at the core of each web admin task. While they can turn off the anti-bot system before carrying out the test, that would mean giving the bad guys access. Instead, they could use IPs and rotate them and act as a bad guy to see how their website will react.
Best Proxies for Link Testing
Whether you are looking for proxies to test your affiliate link or for website URL testing, there are a good number of them in the market. But except you know what you are doing, you could end up with a bad provider. We know the proxy provider market and know the best for link testing. Below is a list of proxy providers you can buy URL testing proxies from.
Bright Data
- IP Pool Size: Over 72 million
- Locations: All countries in the world
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Bandwidth Allowed: Starts at 20GB
- Cost: Starts from $300 monthly for 20GB
Bright Data is regarded as the market leader in the proxy market, with Fortune 500 companies on its customer list. This service has proxies you can use for link testing as it has all the features required for link testing. It has the largest proxy pool in the market, with over 72 million IPs in its pool.
It proxies are rotating proxies that change IP after every request or a defined period of time. You can maintain sessions for up to 30 minutes with Bright Data residential proxies. In terms of location coverage, it has the best in the market as it has support for all countries, states, and major cities around the world. No doubt, their proxies work but are considered expensive for small marketers.
Soax
- IP Pool Size: Over 5 million
- Locations: over 100 countries across the globe
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Bandwidth Allowed: Starts at 5GB
- Cost: Starts from $75 monthly for 5GB
Soax is another provider you can buy link testing proxies from. It is still young in the market when compared to the other premium providers. However, it has proven to be one of the best. This provider has a proxy pool with over 5 million IPs from over 100 countries around the world.
Aside from country-level targeting, this provider also has support for city-level and carrier-based targeting. Their proxies, just like Bright Data, are rotating proxies. One thing you will come to like about Soax proxies is that their pool is one of the cleanest in the market as it is regularly updated and dead IPs are removed.
Smartproxy
- IP Pool Size: Over 40 million
- Locations: 195 locations across the globe
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Bandwidth Allowed: Starts at 5GB
- Cost: Starts from $75 monthly for 5GB
Smartproxy has proven itself to be one of the best in the market. Its proxies perform well and even compete with the likes of Bright Data – it has been rated fastest in the market in many proxy speed tests. The Smartproxy proxy service has one of the largest proxy pools in the market, with over 40 million IP addresses sourced from over 195 countries around the world.
You can also choose IPs from 8 supported cities and the 195 countries' support. Smartproxy allows you to maintain sessions for up to 10 minutes. In terms of pricing, it is quite affordable compared to Bright Data. All you need is $75 to get started, and that would give you 5GB.
Shifter
- IP Pool Size: Over 31 million
- Locations: 130 countries
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Cost: Starts at $249.99 monthly for 10 ports
All of the providers above offer their packages with limited bandwidth usage. If you are looking for a provider that will allow you to enjoy unlimited bandwidth usage while testing out URLs, then Shifter should be top on your list, and this is not without reason.
It is currently the best unlimited bandwidth residential IP Proxies provider in the market. It also has one of the largest proxy pools in the market, with over 31 million IPs in pool sourced from countries across the globe. Their proxies are backconnect proxies and rotate IP after every 5 minutes. Pricing can be said to be moderate and affordable. Aside from link testing, you can use their proxies for a good number of other use cases.
Proxyrack
- IP Pool Size: over 2 million
- Locations: 140 countries
- Concurrency Allowed: unlimited
- Cost: Starts from $80 for 100 threads
This provider is quite unique in the proxy market as it is the only provider that allows you to enjoy both unlimited bandwidth and as many IPs as you like in their pool. The pricing for this provider is based on the number of threads you can create – and you need only $80 to get started.
You can use their proxies as link testing proxies as they are quite good for that. They have got a proxy pool with over 2 million IPs that you can use. However, just like the other providers on the list, the active IPs at any given time are far lesser than the advertised pool size. In terms of rotation, you can get both rotating proxies and session proxies from Proxyrack.
FAQs About Proxies for Link Testing
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Can I Use Datacenter Proxies for Link Testing?
You can definitely use datacenter proxies for link testing. However, if you look at our recommendations above, you will see that we advise you to use residential proxies. This does not mean datacenter proxies can’t be used.
However, most datacenter providers do not have extensive location coverage, which makes them not a fit if you need to test links from different locations across the globe. Also, some sites would detect and block them. However, if there is no location undertone to your test, then high-quality datacenter proxies will work.
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Is Link Testing for Affiliate Allowed?
While many e-commerce stores do not allow the use of proxies on their platform because they are seen as deceptive, as an affiliate marketer, you will need to use proxies for optimizing your links for conversion if the affiliate partner offers different content to different regions. Proxy usage for testing purposes is allowed by many affiliates, while some still stick to the no-proxy rule.
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What are the Best Proxies for Link Testing?
There are a good number of providers in the market that would claim to be the best for link testing, and a simple Google search will show you that.
However, as per our own test, if you are looking for a best and not a list for you to choose from, then Bright Data is the best. However, if you cannot afford it, then use Smartproxy as they are the best alternative to Bright Data.
Conclusion
The advantages of link testing cannot be overemphasized not only for marketers but also developers as it is useful for not only testing functionalities and can also be used for detecting fraud, faults, and security loopholes.
However, in some cases, link testing is not possible without proxies. If you are faced with the need to test links and websites using proxies, then you can make a choice from the providers discussed above, as they have proven to have proxies that work for such.
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