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“Data makes the world go round” — this adage rings more true today than perhaps ever before. Data is what pushes innovation forward, makes the internet work for us and meet our needs, and connects us both online and offline. There is nothing we cannot do with data, and use new cases for its potential are being unveiled every day.
With the influx of data use cases comes the issue of ethical data collection and utilization. This is an issue that many have written about, opined on, and offered solutions for over the years.
Neil Emeigh, CEO of Rayobyte — the largest US-based proxy provider — has a long history with data collection ethics and web scraping, which describes the act of extracting key data from websites. He knows that not all web scraping approaches are ethical, legitimate, or safe and reliable for customers. He has formed a company (previously called Blazing SEO) that provides proxies or proxy servers that serve as intermediaries between a client and a server, allowing for better web scraping by disguising client IP addresses.
Neil is an expert in using proxies and, a decade ago, initially built a business that provided blazing-fast proxies for SEO purposes (hence its original name). Today, he has extended that original business to provide far more than SEO services; Rayobyte is a 2022 Proxyway Contender of the Year and is on its way to upending the web scraping scene.
Neil explained the shift in discipline and name to The Webscraping Club: “In July of 2022, we officially rebranded as ‘Rayobyte’ from ‘Blazing SEO’ — a name that means ‘the largest finite amount of bytes possible.’ This name better reflects our promise to customers today: no matter how much data you’re looking for, how much bandwidth you require, or how many IPs you need.”
Proxies for multiple use cases
Neil quickly learned that there was a great demand for proxies across multiple use cases. He fashioned his business to serve clients with a variety of needs and budgets. “It’s all about how reliably you can provide results for your customers,” Neil says. “We go above and beyond to set our customers up with what we know are the best mix of proxies for their use case because ultimately we’re the experts.”
Rayobyte offers data center proxies for affordable scraping with static IP addresses on non-major sites. The proxies can be shared between three separate users simultaneously and are incredibly fast. The company caters to higher-end needs with high-powered residential proxies offered by users, which clear the way of potential obstacles for web scrapers. Rayobyte has solidified its reputation for offering up the best data center proxies in the industry, regardless of the size or use case needed by their clients.
Rayobyte has been lauded as having the best data center proxies in the industry. “A lot of providers specialize in one type of proxy,” Neil explains. “You could be the best mobile proxy provider, the best residential proxy provider, or the best rotating ISP proxy provider — the trick is to hone in on one thing and become the best at it.”
Rayobyte currently offers residential proxies, mobile proxies, data center IPs, ISP proxies, and rotating ISP proxies, covering any possible proxy need. Its mission is to become the sole proxy provider for their clients, eliminating the desire to spread proxy needs across multiple providers.
A focus on ethics
From the beginning of his entrepreneurial journey, Neil has been focused on the ethical components of his business. This mindset has set Rayobyte apart from other web scraping proxy providers and has allowed the company to lead the way into a more ethical era of data collection and usage overall.
“Ethical usage means understanding what people are using your proxies for,” Neil explains. “When most people think of proxies, they think about hacking — someone sneaking into your network to steal private data. What they don’t think about is that Google makes all their business from scraping web pages. Pretty much every e-commerce company is using scraping research.”
Educating the public on what web scraping is and what it is not is the first step in solidifying Rayobyte’s mission. What Neil and the team at Rayobyte want people to understand is that web scraping has a lot of similarities to digital competition research.
Neil is laser-focused on remaining ethical above all and continuing to educate the public and his clients on what ethical web scraping entails. “It all starts by not letting your users do sketchy stuff,” he says. “Putting in the automated and manual checking systems will ensure nobody can access private data using your proxies.”
In today’s world, where everything is about data, companies like Rayobyte will continue to lead the way in ensuring that data is sourced and used correctly. This will allow their clients to move forward with the most reliable proxies and the most effective web scraping possible.
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