```yaml
product: AlterLab
title: "Residential Proxy — Web Scraping Glossary | AlterLab"
comparison_context: "AlterLab is an alternative to Firecrawl, ScrapingBee, and Bright Data."
source_url: https://alterlab.io/glossary/residential-proxy
```

proxy

# Residential Proxy

An IP address assigned by an ISP to a real residential device, used to route scraping requests through genuine consumer IPs.

A residential proxy is an IP address that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigned to a real home or mobile device. When a scraper routes its requests through a residential IP, the target website sees a genuine consumer connection rather than a datacenter origin — making it far less likely to trigger bot detection or IP bans.

Residential IPs are valuable because anti-bot systems maintain reputation databases of known datacenter IP ranges (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and thousands of hosting providers) and block them by default. A residential IP from a real ISP like Comcast, AT&T, or a mobile carrier carries no such negative signal. The tradeoff is higher cost and lower throughput compared to datacenter proxies.

AlterLab's Tier 3 and above use rotating residential proxies sourced from an ethically managed pool across 195+ countries. The IP selection is automatic — you specify a country code in the request and AlterLab routes through a residential IP in that region.

### What is Residential Proxy?

An IP address assigned by an ISP to a real residential device, used to route scraping requests through genuine consumer IPs.

### How does AlterLab handle Residential Proxy?

AlterLab's Tier 3 and above use rotating residential proxies sourced from an ethically managed pool across 195+ countries. The IP selection is automatic — you specify a country code in the request and AlterLab routes through a residential IP in that region.

## Examples

```
# Route through a US residential IP
{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "country_code": "US",
  "proxy_type": "residential"
}
```

## Related Terms

[Datacenter ProxyAn IP address hosted in a commercial data centre rather than assigned by a residential ISP — faster but more easily detected by anti-bot systems.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/datacenter-proxy)[Rotating ProxyA proxy configuration that automatically assigns a different IP address for each request or at a set interval to prevent IP-based rate limiting.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/rotating-proxy)[IP RotationThe practice of cycling through multiple IP addresses across requests so no single IP triggers rate limits or bans.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/ip-rotation)[Proxy PoolA managed collection of proxy IP addresses used to distribute outbound requests across multiple origins and stay below per-IP rate limits.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/proxy-pool)[Anti-Bot ProtectionSystems deployed by websites to detect and block automated traffic using TLS fingerprinting, CAPTCHA challenges, and behavioural analysis.](https://alterlab.io/glossary/anti-bot-protection)

## Extract Residential Proxy data from any website

AlterLab returns clean, structured data from any public URL — no scraper infrastructure needed. Start free, no credit card required.

[View API docs](https://alterlab.io/docs/api/rest)

[Back to Glossary](https://alterlab.io/glossary)