so after my last post about scaling i figured id tighten my geo-targeting, get better localized content for a project. saw a thread somewhere with a 'deal' for geo-targeted residentials, price was too good to be true but i was tired of paying like $15 per gb for solid ips. vendor promised city-level targeting for like 5 bucks a gig. set it up for a news aggregation scrape across 3 european cities. first 100 requests were golden, ips looked local, response times decent. then the cr started dropping hard. like from 90% success to maybe 40% after a few hours. checked the logs. the ips were supposedly from frankfurt but half the requests were getting routed through datacenters in freaking miami. the geo-db lookup i run on the side confirmed it. they were selling me a backconnect pool with bad routing labels. wasted a day's work and the data is useless cause the localized ads and content are all wrong. moral of the story? if a geo-proxy deal seems cheap, they're prob just slapping a location tag on a random ip pool and calling it a day. ask for a small test batch first. always verify with an external api like ipinfo or maxmind on a sample of the ips. i learned the hard way again. anyone else got burned on a 'localized' proxy promise lately?

been doing this 3 years and honestly, that part screams red flag. if the ips LOOK local and responses are decent at first, probs just luck. most legit providers verify the geo and update regularly. the fact it drops so hard says they prob just dumped cheap pools and didn't care about actual location accuracy. never trust cheap tf unless u verify every single time.

just my 2 cents, yeah red flags everywhere if it's too cheap, but what's your go-to method for verifying the geo accuracy before trusting a new provider? always curious how folks handle that.

bruh I tried those cheap geo-proxy deals too, same crap. ever tried setting up your own VPN chains or using residential IP rotators with verified data? bet it's slower but safer.

bruh, I tried those slow residentials too but honestly sometimes the speed was worth it for the peace of mind. more often than not, legit residential IPs are kinda slow anyway, so I stopped chasing fast and just aimed for verified. speed ain't everything if your data's trash

been doing this 3 years and yeah, cheap is almost always sus. ever tried crawling those providers' IPs with a VPN or mobile data just to see if they match up or if it's all smoke and mirrors? usually the quickest way to spot if they're lying.

lol I did the same with a VPN once, thought I was slick but ended up messing my stats bad. Never trust those free proxies, man.

85% of geo-proxies mess with your data if you don't test them first. Always run a quick test on a sandbox before hooking up your main stuff.

been doing this 3 years and I swear half the geo-proxies I tested still mess with my data. Do you usually find any legit ones or just stick with VPNs now?

Haha, maybe, but isn't a good VPN supposed to be more reliable than some shady proxy? Ever tried one of those paid VPNs that actually test clean?

60% of geo-proxies are unreliable, so calling it a 'deal' might be a stretch. You prob just got burned by a shady one. always test before trusting ur data.

careful with that stat, I've found a handful of geo-proxies that actually work fine if you test em first. Seems like ymmv. Do you do anything special to vet the ones you trust?

Careful with that stat, I agree. I've had geo-proxies seem legit at first but then start messing with my data after a while. Always test thoroughly before trusting them long term.

Had a buddy swear by a cheap geo-proxy, said it was solid. Turns out it totally screwed his metrics after a week. Always seemed too good to be true.

bruh lol that's so typical. u get hyped about some cheap proxy and then ur data gets all jacked up. imho always do a proper test first, don't trust the hype straight away. been there, done that, learned my lesson lmao