Baron Munchausen, the administrator of Proxy.org and other sites has just acquired Glype, the most popular web-based proxy script.  This is great news for all Glype users everywhere.

More information to follow.

]]> http://theproxybusiness.com/2010/05/baron-munchausen-aquires-glype/feed/ 0 http://theproxybusiness.com/2010/04/proxy-org-sets-industry-standard/ http://theproxybusiness.com/2010/04/proxy-org-sets-industry-standard/#comments Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:47:30 +0000 Baron Munchausen http://theproxybusiness.com/?p=110 Proxy.org Email Blasts set the industry standard for reach, price, quality, ease of use, and satisfaction. How can you compare it to other competing services? I have prepared the following list as a reference for prospective customers:

• Proxy.org Email Blasts now reach over 200,000 users. This does not count so-called “bouncing” users (those whose emails are returned as undeliverable). Other services count bouncing users in their totals so you end up paying more to reach fewer real real users.
• Proxy.org does not merely discount bouncing users, they are removed from its mailing lists entirely. To date, Proxy.org has removed approximately 20,000 users from its mailing lists. Other services do not remove or disclose the number of bouncing users in their mailing lists.
• Proxy.org Email Blasts cost only $5. This is roughly 2.5¢ CPM (per thousand users). To calculate the CPM rate for another service, multiply the price by 1000 and divide by the number of users. The formula is (price*1000)/users=CPM. Though all proxy mailing services are inexpensive, when compared on the basis of CPM, other services cost many times more and are thus not nearly as cost effective as Proxy.org Email Blasts.
• Proxy.org provides a fully automated self-service online ordering system for Email Blasts and also provides personal assistance and custom quotes for bulk orders. You can choose the date for your Email Blast from a calendar or let the system schedule it for you in the first available spot. Other services have awkward order processes that require you to jump through hoops.
• Proxy.org provides customer support.
• Proxy.org reaches users in much more than Yahoo Groups and Google Groups. Proxy.org Email Blasts are also sent to Twitter, FeedBurner, the ProxyPal iPhone app, ProxyEmailer.com, and the Proxy.org Forum. The 24,000 users in the Proxy.org forum and the visitors to ProxyEmailer.com are not counted toward the total reach of Proxy.org Email Blasts.
• Proxy.org was the first website to provide advertising solutions tailored to web-based proxies and continues to be a market leader.
• During 2009, Proxy.org tripled the total reach of its Email Blasts while removing bouncing users and maintaining the incredibly low price of $5 per Email Blast.

Proxy.org’s Email Blast service provides a onetime mailing to Proxy.org’s entire member base of over 200,000 members inclusive of the following 37 mailing lists:

NewDailyProxies.com (Google Group with 25,741 members)
EverydayProxy.com (Yahoo Group with 13,599 members)
Proxy News (Yahoo Group with 6,894 members)
ProxInbox (Yahoo Group with 5,667 members)
Daily Web Proxies (Google Group with 5,303 members)
proxism (Yahoo Group with 4,595 members)
FreshUnblocker (Google Group with 4,485 members)
New FRESH Proxies (Google Group with 4,076 members)
DailyProxies.net (Yahoo Group with 3,929 members)
ProxyMailingList.com (Yahoo Group with 3,212 members)
Hostcloak Proxy Network (Google Group with 3,190 members)
Proxy Pal (iPhone App with 3,000 members)
Proxy Emailer (Google Group with 2,902 members)
myfreshproxies (Yahoo Group with 2,219 members)
brandnewproxy (Yahoo Group with 1,822 members)
ProxyRoxy (Yahoo Group with 1,720 members)
ProxInbox (Google Group with 1,511 members)
@proxies (Twitter Account with 1,311 members)
surfzone (Yahoo Group with 1,022 members)
TheProxyCommunity.net (Google Group with 994 members)
Proxy.org – New Proxies (RSS Feed with 646 members)
Proxy.org – Latest Forum Posts (RSS Feed with 633 members)
The Proxy Community (Yahoo Group with 429 members)
Proxy RSS Feed (RSS Feed with 428 members)
Proxies 123 (Yahoo Group with 266 members)
Plus 40,573 members in 12 private groups.

The service costs only $5 per proxy. This works out to 2.5¢ CPM (per thousand members). Email Blasts can be scheduled in the first available spot or choose a start date from the calendar.

Quality top lists is hard to find, basically because there’s not that many of them, and because the one’s who know about them won’t share them. What I’m about to tell you now is a website I’ve been keeping to myself, and I’m sure a lot of you have done the same thing.

MWolk is the 3rd largest Proxy listing site after proxy.org and tech-faq and gets loads of proxy related traffic. It has 1000 feed subscribers and ranks really well for various proxy related terms.

A while back, when I started iSchoogle, MWolk was it’s main provider of traffic.

The design of MWolk is very good, and user-friendly. If you ask me, this is the hottest top list around. This is how a real proxy top list should look like.

It was poseidon (DP member) who started MWolk in 2006, and it’s been growing ever since. If you haven’t submitted your proxy website already, submit it now! This is definitely a must-submit for all proxy owners.

There is one thing about MWolk that I haven’t seen anywhere else, yet. They have a unique list of different niche-proxies. Unlike other top sites, where you have to try a few proxy website before you find one that supports MySpace or YouTube, MWolk has it’s own list of niche-supporting proxies.

Example:  They have one YouTube supported proxy list, and one Friendster supported proxy list.

If you are new to proxies, they have a good explanation of what a Free Anonymous Proxy is.

Check out MWolk’s proxy list at http://www.MWolk.com

Today I started the first interviews of the upcomming “The People Behind The Proxies”.

It’s going to be a series of interviews with veteran proxy owners, and it’s going to be awesome! I’m thinking of publishing one interview per week. You wanted unique insight in the proxy business.. You got it!

Anyway, in the mean time.. I made a thread called The Proxy Top Lists Thread at digitalpoint yesterday, where the goal is to make a list of working proxy top lists in 2009. If you have a Proxy Top List or have a collection of them saved in your bookmarks, we’d all appriciate if you share them.

We have a bunch of top lists submitted already, share your proxy top list bookmarks!

Today I wanted to sum up an important part of being a proxy webmaster; the places to be. I know it’s hard for many new proxy owners to know where to ask questions and connect with other proxy webmasters. So I decided to make this a little social guide for proxy owners.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com

Many of you have either heard of, or is a member of Digital Point. This is one of, if not the, largest webmaster forum online. So if you are not a member there, register right away.

As a member of DP (I will refer to DigitalPoint as DP from now on), you not only get access to tons of information, you get access to the largest marketplace for webmasters.
The Marketplace

One of my favourite places to hang out at DP. Each day there are members looking to buy proxy websites, selling proxy websites, offering cheap proxy hosting, new proxy top lists, cheap proxy promotion.. Just about anything. If you pay attention to the threads, you’ll discover bargains.

Be sure to read the rules, and be careful with how small posts you make. I’ve been banned a few times for posting “Send me a PM or PM sent”. They are very strict about these things, and being banned from DP = no business.
The Proxy Discussion Thread

If you haven’t already subscribed in The Proxy Thread, do it now. The Proxy Thread was started July 14th, 2007 by antman in order to share information and tips on how to run a successful proxy business.

Tips: If you are new to the proxy business, start out by reading a lot in this thread. You will learn more from this thread than any other place.

With no less than has 676 pages (when writing this post), The Proxy Thread is probably the most active thread on DP, and every proxy owner at DP is following. It’s a unique and very friendly tone in this thread, and when you have a proxy related question – ask there. You will most certainly get some good answers.

It’s also a good place to promote a new Proxy Top List, Proxy tools, or a proxy blog like this one.
ProxyOwnersForum.com

Another quality hangout for proxy owners is Proxy Owners Forum. This is a whole forum packed with proxy owners, and I predict this to be an important place for proxy owners in 2009. The forum is still small, and due to some inactivity it takes some time to get a reply, but forums takes time to grow. I honestly haven’t been much active here myself, but I intend to.
http://forums.WebProxyTalk.com

The most active forum for proxy webmasters is WebProxyTalk. With 285 active users in the past 24 hours, this is another great place to talk about the proxy business. As I searched the forums, I found a lot of good proxy promotion offers. They also have their own “proxy marketplace”, like on DP, only this is dedicated to proxy business.

For new proxy webmasters, you could check out the “Proxy Website Reviews” thread. Here you can get feedback and tips for your new proxy website. A very good place to start out if you are just launching a proxy website.

By the way, you can also find some free templates at WebProxyTalk.
TheProxyBusiness.com

Last, but not least, The Proxy Business. I hope you enjoy my posts, and subscribe if you do. Even though I just started this blog, I hope to become a valuable source for both new and experienced proxy webmasters with time.

This blog was created to bring more focus to the proxy webmasters. Innovation, my friend, is the key to success. I want to see more unique quality websites. There are too many proxy owners running all their proxies on free templates, and just letting them sit there. So those of you who are actually putting an effort into being different – this blog is for you.

Anyway, I will continiue to blog Proxy Website Reviews, insight and How To’s. If you have something you want me to blog about, or have any unique proxy tips – let me know. I’ll be glad to write about it.

Don’t hesitate to e-mail me at thomas@theproxybusiness.com. I’ll be happy to answer any questions

If you enjoyed this little Social Guide For Proxy Owners. Now, why not comment or stumble it?

If you are a new proxy webmaster starting your first proxy, you should check out these Free Proxy Template websites. I know there are other websites offering free proxy templates, but some of them was from back in 2006-2007, so they didn’t make this list.

http://www.skinmyproxy.com/
http://www.freeproxytemplates.com/
http://zelunetemplates.com/
http://www.glypedesigns.com/ Btw, check out their Customyzer.
http://www.zelune.net/zelune-proxy-themes/
http://proxythemes.org/
http://www.xytheme.com/

If you have any other free proxy template websites that I’m not aware of, feel free to leave it in a comment below.

I created a Squidoo lens in the facebook-niche, with the lens name Unblock-Facebook. Then I titled it Unblock Facebook At School. (just to be clear, there was less competition for those keywords when I created the lens)

I honestly didn’t put that much work into the lens, but I did a few tricks that I knew Google love to make it rank higher. By including fresh, relevant content through RSS, Google will come visit you daily. Fresh content = higher ranking.

Just do a search for your lens-keyword in Google Blogsearch, and right-click the RSS button on the left. Copy the link and then use this as a source when you add RSS on your lens. That’s it.

As I said, I didn’t write that much content on the lens. But it does the trick, and it took be about 30-40 minutes to finish it.

Last week I got 118 visits to the lens. Here is a screenshot from the last 30 days:

As you can see, it’s not bad for a lens that has strong competition and has only been updated once. The lens is on the third page on Google for the keyword “Unblock Facebook At School”.

Do you use Squidoo lenses for promoting proxy websites? Let me know how it goes, drop me a comment below.

The service costs $6.95 per month, however, they are currently offering a one-week free trial. Note that the free trial automatically rebills at their full rate after one week. When you signup, you get a few different proxy sites to choose from:

• www.65v.info – running Glype
• www.4b5.info – running CGIProxy, hosting account suspended
• www.c3w.info – running Zelune , hosting account suspended

The ProxyKey website boasts a number of impressive claims:

• Reliability – "We have never had a proxy down before. If we do, we have several backups on different servers so we always have one online."

  Never? No. Two of their three sites are offline at the time of this writing.

• Multiple Location – "We have proxies from multiple domains, IPs, countries (USA and offshore), and different scripts available."

  One working proxy, one IP, one script, none offshore. ProxyKey advertises that 65v.info is located in Melbourne, Australia but in actuality it is located in the FDCservers.net datacenter in Woodstock, IL.

• Super Fast Access – "We have a Dedicated 1 Megabyte per second (Mbps) line per user so you never have to worry about slow loading time."

  Absurd. A dedicated 1 megabit line per user is clearly not provided as the “line” is shared amongst all users of the service. Also, Mbps is the abbreviation for “megabit per second”, a very different measurement than megabytes and hardly “super fast”. Users are unlikely to "never have to worry about slow loading time”.

• Unlimited File Download Size – "We do not have a limit on the size of the files you download so feel free to stream video or access large files."

  The proxy script used on ProxyKey’s only working proxy is Glype and it does not support any sort of streaming media. I visited YouTube via the proxy and confirmed that no videos would display.

• Never Blocked – "One major problem with proxies is that they are often themselves blocked. We take preventative measures to make sure that we are never blocked."

  Never? With one proxy site working they had better hope so.

• Compatibility – "Most proxies aren’t fully functional with Myspace, Youtube, and other websites. We make sure that we are fully compatible with all websites."

  No. I found that ProxyKey is not compatible with YouTube. No web-based proxy can or should claim to be “fully compatible with all websites” as it is impossible.

• Restrictions – "Public proxies put on some annoying restrictions. We however don’t have any restrictions on file size limit, allow the FTP protocol, etc."

  No. Glype does not support the FTP protocol. Claims of “no restrictions” and having an “unlimited file size limit” do not stand up considering that ProxyKey has finite resources for its proxies.

ProxyKey fails to deliver on its promises and provides a user experience comparable with any free proxy but at a premium price. I recommend users purchase from established proxy services instead.

TPB Rating:
Design: 4
Content: 1
Speed: 4
Special Features: 1
Overall: 2 out of 10

Today I discovered a cool proxy website called ProxyRotator. Instead of using only one proxy, ProxyRotator lets you randomly rotate different proxy websites. No need to search top lists for new fresh proxies anymore, ProxyRotator does it for you.

Basically you just enter ProxyRotator.com and you are set to go. If you do not like the current proxy website, just click Rotate and ProxyRotator will find a new proxy for you.

The design is simple,smooth and in big letters (I love big letters).

The thing about ProxyRotator is that it’s a win – win for proxy users and proxy webmasters. It’s easy to submit new proxy websites, and there is no reciprocal link required. However, if you place a small banner before joining you will get 500 Credits.

The more credit your proxy has, the more views it will get. So by placing a small banner you are guaranteed 500 visits. You can also get extra credits by participating in the forum, and the owner of ProxyRotator revealed to me that in the future there may be a paid option.

The only downside to ProxyRotator as I experienced it was a few slow proxies, and some that didn’t work. But all in all I had a good experience using ProxyRotator, and for active proxy users I am sure that this is a great tool!

Because there are different proxy websites from time to time, content, speed and design can not be reviewed as usual. This review is based on the overall experience of ProxyRotator.

Proxy Review: 7

Click here to visit ProxyRotator.com