IP reputation

Websites cannot see who is behind an address, but they can see its history: whether complaints, spam or overly frequent requests came from it. They also take into account the network type by ASN: a home ISP, a mobile carrier or a hosting provider.

Reputation determines how a site responds: it opens the page, shows a CAPTCHA or refuses. Datacenter addresses are more often subject to extra checks because of their type.

Reputation is not permanent: databases are updated, and an address that was once restricted becomes ordinary again over time. But a fresh bad history is noticeable right away.

In Prokso the pool settings include an anonymity filter: it filters out IPs that websites have already flagged as a proxy or VPN.

What an address score is made of

There is no single "IP reputation": every website and every protection service calculates its own. But the ingredients are similar:

• the network type by ASN: home, mobile or hosting;
• whether the address appears on proxy, VPN and spam lists;
• the site's own history: how many requests, errors and complaints came from this address;
• the behavior of the whole /24 block, not just one address;
• the consistency of other signals: time zone, language, User-Agent.

How to assess an address before work

Start with the My IP page in the profile with the proxy. Check that the ISP is an ordinary internet provider or a mobile carrier rather than a hosting company, and that the time zone by IP and by browser match. Websites often treat mismatched signals worse than the address itself. To compare several addresses from the pool, use the "Check any IP" field on the same page.

Next, open the target site once, without a series of requests. If the very first page shows a CAPTCHA, do not try to wait it out: on port 823 or 824 the next request goes from another IP, and on a sticky port you can switch to a different port.

How not to damage the reputation yourself

Most of an address's bad history comes from the pace. A Prokso plan allows up to 1000 concurrent connections, but a website judges how many requests arrive at it in particular. Spread the load across sites, add pauses and watch for the 429 code: it tells you plainly to slow down. A slower but steady pace usually brings more successful responses than short bursts followed by a series of refusals.

How websites decide on an acceptable request rate is explained in the rate limit article.