Inet Solutions

Case Study: Comparing The Top 3 GSA SER Proxy Providers

Sterling King

If you are running an instance of GSA Search Engine Ranker, then you know very well that you can’t do it effectively without amazing proxies. Today, I will be testing the top 3 GSA SER proxy providers – Storm Proxies, BuyProxies, and ReverseProxies.

What You’ll Learn

Preparing The Stage

The test will be quite simple – I will basically run 7 GSA SER projects, 3 of which have all engines selected, and 4 of which have only contextual engines selected. The test will run for an hour at 100 threads and even though all of these proxy providers offer both dedicated and semi-dedicated proxies (except for Storm Proxies who use only backconnect proxies), I will test only the dedicated (private) ones since I do not recommend using semi-dedicated proxies for your GSA SER link building campaigns.

Other important resources concerning the case study:

And that’s basically it. Now let’s get to the fun part – testing the proxies (buy private proxies).

Comparing The Top 3 GSA SER Proxy Providers

What we’re going to be looking at is VpM, its sustainability, verification success rate and other important GSA SER link building factors. Now, aside from listing the results from the test, I will also list all of the features of each proxy provider so that you can easily see the difference between them. Let’s start with Storm Proxies.

Storm Proxies

Storm Proxies are the new kid on the block and they come from the guys that brought you the awesome GSA SER SeRocket link lists. Those proxies are created specifically for GSA Search Engine Ranker and come with a ton of features including:

So that’s pretty much it for the features of Storm Proxies. Now let’s see how they performed.

Storm Proxies Test Results

As I already mentioned, I ran them for a full hour, using the proxies that rotate IP on each request at 100 threads. Here is a picture of the VpM after 60 minutes:

25.21 VpM at 100 threads and 7 projects is not too bad at all if you ask me. Also, as you can see, the verification rate is pretty high and most of the remaining links in the submitted column would have probably been verified had I let the test run for some more time. And as for the backlinks created:

About a thousand unique domains in 60 minutes is cool with me as is the breakdown of the links created. Now, a very important thing I noticed is that at the start of the test (about 5 minutes into it), the VpM was not that high, however, as the test progressed, it started and continued to increase until the very end.

Usually, when I start fresh new GSA SER projects, the VpM explodes in the beginning and then gradually starts to slow down as the projects get to the depths of the site lists, however, I guess with this IP rotation pool, you have a little bit more sustainability over time.

And that’s it for the Storm Proxies test. Next stop – BuyProxies.

BuyProxies

If you have been in the SEO world for a while, you’ve most probably heard of BuyProxies – yep, the guys that respond in 5 minutes. BuyProxies are probably the most famous proxy provider in the GSA SER industry – as of now. Here’s what they offer:

And that’s it pretty much for the features of BuyProxies. Now let’s get to the test results.

BuyProxies Test Results

Again, one hour on the clock at 100 threads and 7 projects. I used 10 dedicated proxies, so each proxy performed at 10 threads, which is great if you are just submitting links with GSA SER and not scraping for targets on search engines. Here is the VpM after 60 minutes:

27.38 VpM is very good and a bit higher than what Storm Proxies did. There’s one thing though, the VpM on the Storm Proxies test was still climbing bit by bit at the end of the test while with BuyProxies it was steadily declining after starting at around 100. And as for the backlinks created:

Close to 1100 unique domains created in 60 minutes is great in my book. What’s even better is that the articles are in second place in number of links created which is very nice – after all, contextual links is what we are looking for.

And that’s it for the BuyProxies test. Final stop – ReverseProxies.

ReverseProxies

Out of all 3 proxy providers we are comparing, ReverseProxies definitely have the biggest pool of proxies. Just a clarification for those unaware – ReverseProxies represent the proxies offered by the company whereas ReverseProxies OCR is their captcha solving service. People mistake the two very often so I just wanted to clarify that. Here’s the rest of the features of this GSA SER proxy provider:

And that’s basically it for the features of ReverseProxies. Now let’s take a look at the test results.

ReverseProxies Test Results

For this test, I used 10 dedicated proxies at 100 threads instead of the IP rotating ones as I think that those bring best results. I just want to note that at about 40 minutes into the test, GSA SER crashed (it happens on rare occasions) which is why you see the incorrect numbers of submitted and verified backlinks in the statistics bar at the bottom, however, the VpM is almost completely accurate – it would have probably been about 1 or 2 points lower:

As you can see, it is the top VpM of the 3 proxy providers, however it really is just below the VpM achieved by BuyProxies. There are some problems with the clock on my VPS and it fluctuates a bit from time to time making the VpM slightly different than the real one.

No worries though, I time all tests with a chronometer, so the real VpM can easily be calculated by dividing the number of verified links by 60 – and that is what we will compare in the graphs that you will see in a bit. As for the backlinks created by the ReverseProxies proxies:

Again, I like that the articles are in second place and that links from more than one thousand unique domains were created, but that is mostly due to our efficient link lists. And that’s basically it for the case study. Now let’s calculate the real VpM for all the tests and compare the results side-by-side.

GSA SER Proxy Providers Comparison Graphs

As I already told you, there are slight fluctuations in the clock, so the VpM is not 100% accurate. No worries though, here are the real VpMs for all of the 3 tests:

Now that we have some real data, here are the graphs that we will compare these proxy providers by – VpM comparison graph, contextual links created graph, and number of unique domains. Here we go.

The VpM Comparison Graph

The Contextual Links Comparison Graph

The Unique Domains Comparison Graph

Pricing

Now that you have seen what each of these proxy providers can do for your GSA SER link building efforts, let’s take a quick look at each of their pricing plans. Now, I won’t go into much detail here as it is laid out in each of their pricing pages (Storm Proxies here, BuyProxies here, and ReverseProxies here), and basically, each proxy provider is different and meets different needs.

Depending on the amount of GSA Search Engine Ranker projects you are running, the threads, the VPS you are using, etc, you will need to test it out, to find the best proxies that will fit your needs. Preference is key here. I would say that Storm Proxies are the most affordable ones out of the 3 as I know many of my readers are in the beginning of their marketing career, but that’s about it.

From there on, it’s your decision to make. Use the trials, test them out and choose one of these proxy providers – you won’t go wrong in any case.

Conclusion

Chances are, you being an SEO, you’ve probably needed proxies at some point – good proxies to get the job done. At first when I started, probably just like everyone else, I had no excess money to invest and proxies aren’t the cheapest of luxuries.

So for a while, I was trying all kinds of things such as using public proxies (don’t do that), scraping new ones constantly with Scrapebox, etc, and trust me, it isn’t worth your time. I mean, you might give GSA Proxy Scraper a shot as it does find some proxies that will actually do something for you, but compared to dedicated proxies, it is no competition.

What I’m trying to say is that even if you are just starting out, buy 5 – 10 dedicated proxies or just a few backconnect proxies like the ones from Storm Proxies and use those instead of scraping thousands of public proxies that will burn out in a matter of minutes.

Noteworthy mentions: Rayobyte stands out as a reliable and trusted provider, when it comes to top-notch residential proxies. If you want unparalleled capability in finding and feeding results into your software, you should definitely give these proxies a try.

You now have an idea of what the top GSA SER proxy providers are capable of doing, so it should be easy for you to choose the right one.