HTTP vs. HTTPS

Most of websites, by default, are HTTP based. For example, when you type www.youtube.com into your browser, it will be converted to http://www.youtube.com. However, HTTP(Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an insecure method to exchange data on Internet. A third party program could easily intercept a HTTP message.

On the other hand, the letter “S” in HTTPS means secure. It overcomes the shortcoming of HTTP and provides a much safer way to communicate online. Basically, HTTPS uses a pair of Public and Private Keys to encrypt all messages passing through Internet. Thus, it protects those sensitive data such as password, credit card number, and personal address.

To tell whether a site is running on HTTPS mode, you can look at its URL. It should start with “https://” rather than “http://”.

Why Use HTTPS Proxy Server

Normally, HTTPS are used by Banks, Governments, or Online Shopping Sites. But why do you need it for a web proxy? This is because HTTPS makes it difficult to be blocked.

A typical firewall filter detects your Internet request through URL patterns and content ratings. If you use HTTP, the censor program will easily get the information such as the site you visit and the page you look at. Then, based on the keywords or site categories, it may reject anything on its blacklist, such as Social Networking or Known Proxy Sites.

On the contrary, when you use HTTPS proxies, because of encryption, it is hard for the network filter to read the content of your request. As a result, your chance of bypassing firewall is greatly increased. Moreover, HTTPS is running on a different port (port:443) from that used by HTTP (port:80). Many filter programs may not monitor HTTPS port at all.

How to Build Secure Proxy Server

For proxy business owners, providing HTTPS proxies may give you certain competitive edge. Your sites will not only stay longer but also attract people with security concerns.

In fact, it is neither hard nor expensive to build a secure proxy server. There are only two things you need:

1. Dedicated IP – a static IP address belongs to your proxy site only. You can normally get it for $1 per month.
2. Dedicated SSL Certificate – this is a certificate signed by a trusted authority such as Equifax or VeriSign. Many hosting companies, such as 1and1, include a free SSL certificate in their VPS or Dedicated plans. For shared proxy hosting, you can buy SSL certificates from GoDaddy at very cheap price ($29.99 for single one, $89.99 for 5 domains).

After that, you can simply install the certificate through your server control panel(e.g. Plesk). There are many online tutorials showing you how to do it step-by-step.

In sum, enabling HTTPS on your proxy site makes it easier to bypass firewall filters. It also provides more security features to your visitors. In proxy business, if you want to be outstanding from other competitors, building your own HTTPS proxies is a good way to go.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

The Secretes of HTTPS Proxies is a post from: Pro Proxier

An IP is the network address of a website on Internet. It looks like four groups of numbers separated by dot sign, such as 192.168.1.1. For proxy hosting, a dedicated IP means your proxy site owns that specific network address.

Why Dedicated IP

1. Independence
Under a shared hosting plan, one IP address may be used by hundreds of different websites. If one of them, for some any reasons(e.g. Porn or Spam), is on a black list, the chances are that IP would be banned by some web filters. Consequently, all sites shared the same IP would also be be blocked. Yet, a Dedicated IP makes your proxy site running independently from others.

2. Private SSL Certificate
To make your proxy site hard to be blocked, one effective way is to install a private SSL certificate. However, this requires you own a Static(Dedicated) IP first.

3. Direct Access
Because a Dedicated IP is like a unique identification of a website, people can use it to directly access your proxy site even though the domain name is unavailable.

4. Search Engine Optimization
For people owning multiple websites, one common practice for SEO is to build inside links referring each other. However, if all of those sites were from the same IP address, some search engines would raise a flag. On the contrary, some SEO experts report using different IPs for different sites would help you obtain higher search engine rankings.

5. Proxy Network Strategy
Pro Proxiers usually operate a large proxy network with more than 50 sites. From the strategy point of view, they may allocate dedicated IPs to their flagship proxies while use shared IPs for those satellite ones.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

Why Do You Need Dedicated IP for Your Proxy Hosting? is a post from: Pro Proxier

Types of Proxy Hosting Plan

Based on the server environment, there are three main proxy hosting plans:

1. Shared Proxy Hosting
This is usually the cheapest proxy hosting plan. The word “Shared” means your proxy site shares the same web server with other 20 – 50 websites if not more. All of those sites are competing for CPU Time, Memory Space, and Network Bandwidth. So the performance of your proxy site largely depends on how well your hosting company allocates and optimizes the resources.

2. Virtual Private Server (VPS)
VPS is often considered as a hybrid of Shared Hosting and Dedicated Server. It offers more resources and controls as Dedicated Server while costs much less as Shared Hosting. In essence, your proxy site still shares the web server with others, but you can get guaranteed resources like Memory Space and CPU Time. Plus you are given a ROOT access to freely install your own software and manage server environment.

3. Dedicated Server
This is the ultimate solution for Pro Proxiers. You may pay more money upfront but get the full control of your proxy business. Specifically, the whole web server is 100% dedicated to you, so you have enough power to host more proxy sites. Moreover, you are allowed to adjust some fundamental server settings to gain the maximum system performance.

Things to Look at for Proxy Hosting

1. Bandwidth
Because a proxy site tends to have more visits and page views than a regular website, you first need to ensure there is enough bandwidth available. A low traffic proxy with 500 visits per day might require 100GB bandwidth per month, while a high traffic one with 3,000 visits often needs 1,000GB.

Try to give your proxy as more traffic allowance as possible. I learned this through some hard lessons. One of my champion proxy site went beyond the maximum bandwidth for 2 months, I ended up paying almost $2,000 for the penalty (the overcharge is on the per MB basis). It almost killed my proxy business.

2. Memory
Memory is the key factor of the proxy performance. When many concurrent requests arrive during the peak time, the server memory will be consumed very fast. Once it is used up, your proxy site will take much longer time (often forever) to response back. Usually for a Shared Hosting Plan, it is hard to guarantee how much memory will be assigned to your proxy, but for VPS and Dedicated server, you will look for at least 512MB, ideally 2GB above.

3. CPU
Nowadays, CPU power is usually not a big concern for proxy sites. As long as the server is not too old, its CPU should do the job well. What you care about is the number of CPU. For shared hosting and VPS, the server should have at least 4-8 CPUs to power multiple sites, for Dedicated Server, you will look for 2-4 CPUs as the starting point.

4. Web Space
Unlike other content sites, your proxy may not need huge hard-drive space. For a medium traffic proxy site, 5GB should be good enough as long as you clean up the temporary files generated by caching and logging on the regular basis.

5. Price and Service
Depends on proxy plans and companies, your hosting fee may vary. The typical price range for a Shared Proxy Hosting is $5 – $30, for VPS is $20 – $90, and for Dedicated Server is $80 – $500. Besides the price factor, you may want to look at a hosting company’s reputation, server up time, money return policy, contract term, and customer service.

Proxy Hosting Plan for Beginners

What is the best proxy hosting plan for beginners? It largely depends on your vision of proxy business and your style of doing things.

As a Pro Proxier, if I could start over, I would have definitely chosen Dedicated Server because it would have saved me tons of money and time fighting with server optimization, bandwidth limitation, and memory shortage.

However, I could also understand your concerns about how much you would make from your proxy business, especially when you still walk in the dark, you may be conservative on the monthly cost. Therefore, a Shared Hosting or VPS might be your Ginny Pig to play around first.

Recommended Hosting Companies

One thing I want to point out is: most of companies do not accept proxy in their shared hosting plan. This includes some big players such as GoDaddy, StartLogic, or BlueHost. Why? Because a proxy site usually has a big demand on CPU Time, Memory Space, and Network Bandwidth, they can’t host as many proxies as other regular websites. Therefore, before you sign up for any shared hosting plan, just make sure it allows proxy.

1. Shared Proxy Hosting
A good shared proxy hosting is about saving money while getting high quality service. Personally, the best one I have used is IwhiC Proxy Hosting. It offers very competitive prices (start from $4.99/Month), generous features, and solid server environment. Among its four proxy packages (Personal, Starter, Advanced, Pro), I would suggest you to get a Pro plan, it only costs less than $0.50 per day while provides all you need to start a proxy business. You can visit IwhiC Proxy Hosting here.

2. Virtual Private Server (VPS)
I would highly recommend 1and1 VPS Root Server II. It costs $39/month and you get 512MB memory(2GB Burstable), 1,000GB Bandwidth, free Domain Name, Dedicated IP, and SSL certificate. 1and1 has been ranked as #1 hosting for many years, it offers great customer support and 90-days money return guarantee. It currently has a best promotion on VPS hosting (first 3 months free). You can visit 1and1 Hosting here.

3. Dedicated Server
For the entry level dedicated server, I recommend 1and1 Dual-Core L, it costs $99.99/month and you get 2GB Memory, 2CPUs, and 2,000GB Bandwidth.

For the premium dedicated server, I recommend FDC 1Gbit Unmetered Server, it costs $299.99/month and you get 8GB Memory, 4CPUs, and unlimited Bandwidth.

In conclusion

Based on your budget, expectation, and experience, you may host your web proxy site on Shared Web Server, VPS, or Dedicated Server. By working with right hosting companies, you would pay less money while get better server features and faster customer supports.

This post concludes the How to Create Your Own Web Proxy Site series which helps beginners to build their first web proxy. If you have further questions or suggestions, please add your comment here.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

Find a Hosting Service for Your Web Proxy Site is a post from: Pro Proxier

What is Domain Name

Just like your home address, your domain name is a unique identification for people to find your web site.

A typical domain name contains two parts: Site Name and Domain Extension. For example, Facebook.com, Facebook is the Site Name while .com is the Domain Extension. You can treat domain extensions as the categories of domain names. For proxy sites, most popular domain extensions are:

• .com - represents business, commercial, and general usage
• .info – represents information, resource
• .net – represents network, internet
• .org – represents organization, association

.com or .info

.com is often viewed as the default top-level domain (TLD). If you tell people a site name such as MyProxy, the chances are they will type MyProxy.com into their browsers. On the other side, you may face two issues with .com domains: First, because .com is so popular, many hot .com names have already been taken; Second, you may need to pay more money to register a .com domain.

.info is also used by a lot of proxy sites. This is mainly due to its cheap price. You could get a .info domain for less a dollar from GoDaddy or 1and1 during the promotion.  In addition, the competition for .info domains is less than .com, so you could still find some great .info names unregistered.

As a Pro Proxier, I would recommend you to start with a .com domain for your first proxy site. This allows you to build your brand from the very beginning. Later on, when expand your proxy network, you could purchase a bulk of cheap .info domains to save the cost.

How to Find a Great Domain Name for Your Proxy Site

There are 3 popular ways to come up with a great proxy domain name:

1. Make it Short – a shorter domain name is easier for people to remember and enter into their browsers. Especially when your site is advertised on a proxy list, a shorter name often attracts more attention from people. Ideally, your proxy name should contain fewer than 3 words and maximum 15 characters.

2. Make it Special – to make your proxy site outstanding from thousands of other proxies, you need to do something different. A special (or sometimes weird) domain name often gives you certain edge in the first place. For example, twolulu.com or hidemyass.com, those names tend to get more clicks because they are special.

3. Make it Targeted - one important way to get more proxy traffic is through search engine. So you may want to target your proxy name to a high value keyword. For example, around the keyword – Friend, you may see names like UnblockFriend, FriendLink, or ViewFriend. On the other side, try to avoid sensitive words such as Proxy or Proxies, because some firewall programs will automatically filter out sites with those names.

Tools to Discover a Great Domain Name for You

• Instant Domain Search
  A fast online service that instantly checks if a domain name is available for you.
• Domains Bot
  A convenient domain search engine to help you find some name ideas.
• GoDaddy Domain Search
  A great tool to find domain availability, get domain suggestions, and register domains at one place.

How to Register a Domain Name

You usually register a domain name through a Domain Registrar (an accredited company offers public domain services). Some popular registrars are GoDaddy, 1and1, and Enom.

Personally, I use GoDaddy for most of my proxy domains. This is mainly because GoDaddy provides a best tool to make the whole process of domain search, registration, and management  much easier. Considering a typical proxy owner has over 50 domains, it will save you a lot of time and effort along the road. You can visit GoDaddy here.

Alternatively, you may try 1and1, it often offers some great deals especially combined with its hosting service. You can visit 1and1 here.

Public or Private Domain Registration

One thing I want to point out is, always choose Private Domain Registration when you register a domain for your proxy site. This will hide your personal information (like your name, address, telephone, and email) from the public inquiry, thus protect your privacy.

In the next post, we will take about how to Find a Hosting Service for Your Web Proxy Site.

This post belongs to the How to Create Your Own Web Proxy Site series which helps beginners to build their first web proxy. Read the introduction page here.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

Register a Domain Name for Your Web Proxy Site is a post from: Pro Proxier

After we install a free proxy script on our local test environment, let’s talk about how to customize your web proxy script in this post.

What is Proxy Script Customization

It mainly refers to the look-and-feel changes (e.g. page layout, colors, wordings) on top of the same proxy script. For instance, the following 2 web proxies are both based on Glype, but they appear like totally different sites.

• https://SSLUnblock.com
  
  
  
  
• http://LocalBypass.com
  
  
  
  

Introduce Proxy Themes

To simplify the customization work, some proxy scripts (e.g. Glype) provide so-called Themes system. A proxy theme is a set of files that specify the page layout, fonts, colors, contents, and Ad placements. Moreover, it allows you to easily change the site look-and-feel without affecting the core proxy programs.

The following video gives you a quick introduction to Glype Themes.

Cutomize Proxy Themes

The following video shows you How to Customize Glype Themes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This post belongs to the How to Create Your Own Web Proxy Site series which helps beginners to build their first web proxy. Read the introduction page here.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

Customize Your Web Proxy Script is a post from: Pro Proxier

What is Proxy Script

Your web proxy site is built on top of a computer program called Proxy Script, which retrieves web pages from requested sites and sends results back to users. There are many free proxy scripts you can download from Internet, such as Glype, CGIProxy, and Zelune.

For more details, check out my post What is the Best Free Proxy Script for You?

Download and Install Proxy Script

In this demo, we choose Glype as our proxy script. You can download Glype here.

After you Install Local Test Environment for Your Web Proxy Site, you can follow the video tutorial below to download and install Glype.

In the next post, we will take about how to Customize Your Web Proxy Script.

This post belongs to the How to Create Your Own Web Proxy Site series which helps beginners to build their first web proxy. Read the introduction page here.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money,  you can sign up for my newsletter here.

Download and Install a Free Proxy Script is a post from: Pro Proxier

What is a Local Test Environment

Basically, it is a mini web server installed on your computer, which allows you to run and test your proxy site locally. It brings many benefits such as:

• Create a web proxy site without deploying it to the remote server.
• Freely experiment proxy settings, page designs, or site cutomizations.
• Test any changes before moving them to the production site.
• Make a backup of your live proxy sites.
• Quickly build a new web proxy site by duplicating an existing one.

Install Local Test Environment Using XAMPP

Most of popluar free proxy scripts are written in PHP or Perl and running on Apache web server. In old days, it was hard to do the server installation and configuration. Fortunately, you can now download some pre-configured Apache distributions, such as XAMPP, or MAMP. By using them, you can have your local test environment ready within 10 minutes.

As an example, we use XAMPP in this post. You can download XAMPP here.

The following video tutorial will show you how to use XAMPP to install local test environment for your web proxy site.

In the next post, we will take about how to Download and Install a Free Proxy Script.

This post belongs to the How to Create Your Own Web Proxy Site series which helps beginners to build their first web proxy. Read the introduction page here.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money,  you can sign up for my newsletter here.

Install Local Test Environment for Your Web Proxy Site is a post from: Pro Proxier

The  journey of your proxy business starts with creating your own web proxy site. It sounds like a big job, however, it is really NOT.  In this series of  5 posts, I will show you exactly how to do it step-by-step. Moreover, I will provide you some video tutorials. So you can watch over my shoulder as I create a real live web proxy site from scratch.

What do You Need to Create a Web Proxy Site

• Local Test Environment – A mini web server installed on your local machine. So you can test your proxy site before publish it.
• Proxy Script – A computer program implements proxy functions. You can download it for free from Internet.
• Domain Name – A unique name for your proxy site, such as MyName.com, MyName.info, or MyName.org.
• Proxy Hosting – A place to run your proxy site. For beginners, you typically use a shared proxy hosting service provided by companies such as IwhiC.

5 Steps to Create a Web Proxy Site

1. Install Local Test Environment for Your Web Proxy Site
2. Download and Install a Free Proxy Script
3. Customize Your Web Proxy Script
4. Register a Domain Name for Your Web Proxy Site
5. Find a Hosting Service for Your Web Proxy Site

To follow along with this series, make sure you subscribe to ProProxier RSS feed or bookmark and come back to this page.

Now, let’s begin our journey. First, we will look at how to Install Local Test Environment for Your Web Proxy Site.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

How to Create Your Own Web Proxy Site is a post from: Pro Proxier

What is Proxy Script

A proxy script is a computer program which takes the URL request, retrieves the web pages from the target site, and sends the results back to the user. Just like an engine to a car, your proxy script is the heart to your proxy site. So, how strong and flexible your proxy script is will have a great impact on your proxy business.

To create a proxy script requires a lot of in-depth knowledge and experience of computer programming. Fortunately, as a proxy business owner, you don’t have to do it by yourself. Instead, you just need to choose a best proxy script and customize it.

Popular Free Proxy Scripts

There are many free proxy scripts that you can download from Internet. Some popular ones are:

• Glype – A fast, easy-to-use, web proxy script based on PHP and cURL.
• Zelune – Another fast and common-used PHP proxy script.
• Phphantom – The next-generation proxy script after Zelune.
• PHProxy – One of the earliest PHP proxy scripts, light-weighted and flexible.
• CGIProxy – A solid, powerful HTTP or FTP proxy script based on Perl.
• ASProxy – A fully-functional proxy script written in ASP.NET.

5 Things to Consider Before Choose Your Proxy Script

• Site Compatibility – The purpose of using proxy is to access requested web sites just like you directly visit them. So how compatible your proxy script is with various websites is critical. For instance, does it support common web technologies such as JavaScript, Pop-Ups, Cookie, Flash Movie, or HTTPS? or does it provide plug-ins optimized for popular sites such as YouTube, Facebook, or Myspace? The bottom line is, you don’t want to build a proxy site then turns out to be useless to your visitors.
• Proxy Performance – This usually means how fast you proxy script can process a request and how stable it is. Remember your proxy site is competing with thousands of other proxies. The chances are, few people would be patient enough to wait more than 20 seconds for a page coming back.
• Easy to Use and Customize – Although you don’t need to know the detail implementation of your proxy script, you do need to know how to configure and customize it. A good proxy will help you manage site settings such as cache size, download limitation, and blocked ips. Moreover,  it will allow you to easily change the site layout, color, and contents without touching its core programs.
• Resource Demand – Any single proxy request will consume certain amount of resources, such as CPU Time, Memory Space, or Network Bandwidth. Considering your site may have over 5,000 visits per day, the resource demand of your proxy script will largely affect your site performance. If it is too much, you either have to spend more money upgrading your server or watch your users leaving.
• Continued Development and Support – Internet technologies are continually evolving. New features, widgets, and tools are coming up everyday. To better support them, your proxy script has to catch up as well. Ideally, it should have a new release every 12 months if not more often. In addition, it should have a large user community with  some active forums to help you resolve all kinds of issues.

My Top Proxy Script Picks

Best Overall Free Proxy Script

Glype is by far the most popular proxy script. It shines from the crowd because:

• Support all main web technologies such as JavaScript, Cookie, and Popups.
• Provide a  friendly admin control panel to manage things like Installation Options, URL Encoding, Caching, Hotlinking, Logging, User Access, and Maintenance.
• Use PHP5 and cURL to allow fast access to requested websites.
• Offer a very flexible theme system for easy customization without affecting the core programs.
• Provide a plug-in system to better support individual sites.
• Require less system resources in terms of CPU Time and Memory Space.
• Have more active developments and updates, the latest version – Glype 1.1 was released in Jan, 2009.
• Have a big and active online forum for people to ask questions, discuss issues, and provide solutions.

Most Compatible Free Proxy Script

CGIProxy is often used by seasoned proxiers (Pro Proxiers) as an alternative to Glype. It is mainly because of its full JavaScript support, which provides a better compatibility to popular sites and Pop-up/under Ads (one of the main money-making methods for proxy business).

The two main downsides of CGIProxy are, first it requires relatively more system resources, so you need to have a more powerful server to run it; second, it requires more technical expertise to optimize the server environment for a better  performance.

In sum, a solid proxy script is the foundation of your proxy site. To find a best proxy script, you need to look at its compatibility, performance, customization, resource demand, and support. For anyone new to the proxy business, I’d recommend you to start with Glype. Once you get more experience, especially on server configuration and optimization, you may try CGIProxy to get maximum site compatibility.

If you have any further questions or thoughts regarding the proxy script, please add your comment here.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money,  you can sign up for my newsletter here.

What is the Best Free Proxy Script for You? is a post from: Pro Proxier