Every request you make discloses an IP address, and from that address a site can derive your approximate location, your network operator, and — most importantly for anyone using proxies — whether you look like a household or a datacenter. Understanding those signals is what makes the difference between a proxy that works and one that gets you blocked.
What an IP address reveals
| Signal | What it tells a site |
|---|---|
| Country and region | Which market you appear to be in |
| ISP | Which company operates the connection |
| ASN | The network block, and whether it is consumer or hosting |
| Reverse DNS | Often the operator, sometimes the organisation |
| Reputation data | Prior abuse history associated with the address |
What an ASN actually is
An Autonomous System Number identifies a network that routes traffic independently on the internet. Every IP address belongs to one. The reason it matters is that ASNs are easy to classify in bulk: a handful of ASNs belong to well-known hosting companies, and blocking or challenging all of them is a single cheap rule for an anti-bot vendor. That is the mechanism behind most "datacenter proxies do not work here" experiences — the site is not analysing your behaviour, it is looking up your ASN.
Residential IPs belong to consumer ISP ASNs, which cannot be blanket-blocked without blocking real customers. That asymmetry is the whole value proposition of residential proxies. We cover it further in what an ASN is.
Checking it yourself
The quickest route is our IP lookup tool, which reports the address, country, ISP, ASN and a fraud or risk score. Run it through your proxy to see what a website sees, rather than what you assume it sees.
Credentials are built from a separate variable below rather than pasted inline — a literal user:pass@host string in a page body can be rewritten by email-obfuscation filters.
import requests
endpoint = "geo.spyderproxy.com:12321"
creds = "USERNAME:PASSWORD"
proxy = f"http://{creds}@{endpoint}"
r = requests.get(
"https://api.ipify.org?format=json",
proxies={"http": proxy, "https": proxy}, timeout=15,
)
print("exit address:", r.json()["ip"])Reading a risk score
Several services score addresses for likely abuse. A high score does not mean the address is broken; it means it has history, or belongs to a range associated with automation. If a target is refusing you while your exit shows a high score and a hosting ASN, the diagnosis is usually straightforward, and the fix is a residential exit rather than more retries.
Checking for leaks
Your exit IP is not the only thing that can disclose you. WebRTC can reveal a local address from a browser, and DNS requests can bypass a proxy entirely. Our WebRTC leak test and DNS leak test check both.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an ASN and why does it matter?
An Autonomous System Number identifies a network that routes independently. It matters because ASNs make bulk classification trivial: a site can challenge every address belonging to known hosting networks with one rule.
How do I see what a website sees?
Run our IP lookup tool through your proxy. It reports the exit address, country, ISP, ASN and a risk score, which is what the site is actually evaluating.
Why is my datacenter proxy blocked?
Usually ASN classification rather than behaviour. Datacenter addresses belong to hosting ASNs that anti-bot vendors can challenge wholesale; consumer ISP ASNs cannot be blocked without hitting real customers.
Can a website see more than my IP?
Yes. WebRTC can leak a local address and DNS requests can bypass a proxy. Test both with our WebRTC and DNS leak tools.
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