scrapebox - home PC vs. VPS

[on the r15e]

I've been intrigued by scrapebox for the longest time, and am on the fence at the moment. From what I've gathered here, it really seems to be one of the main tools to start with if you're going to make a serious effort with SEO.

My hesitations aren't with the price of the software (I actually am surprised at how affordable it is, considering all of the functions it allows), but with the overall costs that are required to effectively use it (VPS hosting, proxies, etc.).

I've read many threads on scrapebox, and it seems that there are people out there that are able to run it and use it effectively on a PC, presumably in a home or office network.

So here's my question: aside from the risk of having your IP banned (which you would circumvent by using good proxies). Are there any other risks or limitations to running SB on a pc (windows 7) in your home network? I actually have a network of computers (used for data processing, but they aren't always being used) and I was hoping to just have one of them be a dedicated SB machine when not being used for any processing jobs.

Anyone out there have some helpful insight about this? Is there something else I'm missing or not taking into consideration for running on a home PC?

Also; other than not risking an IP ban, are there any real advantages to using SB with VPS hosting? It just seems stupid for me to pay monthly for VPS hosting with weak systems when I have a network of computers with high-end i7 CPU's, each with 24GB ram at my disposal. I'd much rather run them on my machines and just put that saved money into good proxies; that seems like the smart thing to do...

 

[Desolite]

I run 2-3 instances on my home PC at a time, and I'm currently watching a gaming live stream with no hiccups whatsoever. I can also play games like league of legends with minimal lag while doing it.

my computer setup:
quad core @ 3ghz (typically), 8GB memory (never go over 40-45%), a 10mbit down, 1.5up connection and the rest doesn't matter. I run it all day, all night, harvesting/posting, and have 30 good proxies (contact macbaren if your interested in good proxies for sb!) which keep you from getting IP banned. That's it, that's all you need to run effectively.

VPS is really for people who want to run more than 3 instances (you need multiple licenses for multiple installations btw) or they have a shitty connection which doesn't handle the bandwidth load well leaving them unable to really do anything else. You don't need a VPS, it's just a way to scale up without having to buy another computer. Of course, if you want you can buy a VPS with SB already installed, but you'll pay that off in 2 months if you just bought it and can run it on your comp.

 

[nickk]

I will disagree. Many use VPS or Dedi from scrapebox for the speed that can give you a VPS. Try run scrapebox in a 10mbps and then run same at 100mbps. You will notice that time required for same blast will be much many hours from your home pc than from VPS

I run 2-3 instances on my home PC at a time, and I'm currently watching a gaming live stream with no hiccups whatsoever. I can also play games like league of legends with minimal lag while doing it.

my computer setup:
quad core @ 3ghz (typically), 8GB memory (never go over 40-45%), a 10mbit down, 1.5up connection and the rest doesn't matter. I run it all day, all night, harvesting/posting, and have 30 good proxies (contact macbaren if your interested in good proxies for sb!) which keep you from getting IP banned. That's it, that's all you need to run effectively.

VPS is really for people who want to run more than 3 instances (you need multiple licenses for multiple installations btw) or they have a shitty connection which doesn't handle the bandwidth load well leaving them unable to really do anything else. You don't need a VPS, it's just a way to scale up without having to buy another computer. Of course, if you want you can buy a VPS with SB already installed, but you'll pay that off in 2 months if you just bought it and can run it on your comp.

 

[Desolite]

I will disagree. Many use VPS or Dedi from scrapebox for the speed that can give you a VPS. Try run scrapebox in a 10mbps and then run same at 100mbps. You will notice that time required for same blast will be much many hours from your home pc than from VPS

sure, but there is no additional investment to run it from home and it depends on how much you're blasting anyway. he's new so he should learn SB, then if he wants to up his productivity he should look into a VPS where you can transfer your SB license to.

 

[googlemonster]

I run it all day, all night...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8iWskla-e4
WTF

 

[jb2008]

I don't run it with proxies at all. If I'm at home I use a bulletproof VPN, my VPS is bulletproof anyway. And don't waste your time worrying about IP bans from akismet. Akismet would ban jesus christ for posting a comment on the vatican website, it's just ridiculously strict. Look for autoapprove blogs which don't have akismet on it and blast to the high heavens.

 

[akazzz]

I got a i5 quad core with 8gb ram, running sb no probs. Its barely even pushing my cpu

 

[Enklave]

I have one SB on my computer at home and it is without problem. You can go for VPN if you wont to run your computer 24/7

 

[Gyuman82]

Running it on a VPS unless you have a pretty fast internet connection is preferred.

I used to run it on my home computer when I first got it way back when but I sucked up so much bandwidth my internet got shut down by my ISP.

It really comes down to what you want to use it for.

If you plan to get the most out of Scrapebox, that means multiple instances running all the time. If that's the case I would recommend a VPS for sure.

You can get decent VPS set-ups for like $50/month. Well worth it to be able to run Scrapebox.

Again I don't know what your home set-up is, but I think 95% of people out there would probably be better off on some sort of VPS.

 

[fearcalvin]

I ran scrapebox and other scraping softwares as well on my PC and im perfectly fine I also run off a VPS too, with rotating IPs so try that as well.

 

[on the r15e]

Thanks a lot guys! Desolite hit something that I hadn't mentioned, but realize is a significant factor in this all: I'm new to SB, and there is going to be a period where I'm just getting the hang of things.

Also; I don't offer professional SEO services to others, so I don't plan on doing high volume work; I personally own a small number of sites that I'd like to boost. This may change depending on how much success I have with my strategies and implementing scrapebox, but as others have mentioned; that's the point where I should be looking into a VPS for the sake of scaling up.

I also noticed a couple people mentioned using a VPN instead of proxies. I actually have a subscription with HMA VPN, but read elsewhere that when HMA is rotating proxies I'm at risk of SB making my actual IP temporarily available; and depending on the volume of posting I'm doing, this could lead to an IP ban.

Does anyone here have experience using SB with HMA on a home setup? Would anyone recommend this, keeping in mind that I'm really only going to be doing work for my personal sites, not a portfolio of clients?

I should also mention; I have a fairly fast connection: 20mbps down, 10mbps up, and I know my ISP caps bandwidth at 250GB. I can't imagine that in my situation, SB would be eating up a huge amount of that bandwidth would it?

 

[Clicks4Cash]

I am running it on my laptop with some private proxies.

To be honest with you, it no doubt would likely run a lot faster on a VPS, but as yet I am not running a big operation, so my laptop is fine for now. I think at this stage a VPS would be overkill (I have about six sites on the go).

If I have large batch to run, I often just minimize SB and get on with other stuff. Other times I may leave it running over night.

 

[Gyuman82]

Thanks a lot guys! Desolite hit something that I hadn't mentioned, but realize is a significant factor in this all: I'm new to SB, and there is going to be a period where I'm just getting the hang of things.

Also; I don't offer professional SEO services to others, so I don't plan on doing high volume work; I personally own a small number of sites that I'd like to boost. This may change depending on how much success I have with my strategies and implementing scrapebox, but as others have mentioned; that's the point where I should be looking into a VPS for the sake of scaling up.

I also noticed a couple people mentioned using a VPN instead of proxies. I actually have a subscription with HMA VPN, but read elsewhere that when HMA is rotating proxies I'm at risk of SB making my actual IP temporarily available; and depending on the volume of posting I'm doing, this could lead to an IP ban.

Does anyone here have experience using SB with HMA on a home setup? Would anyone recommend this, keeping in mind that I'm really only going to be doing work for my personal sites, not a portfolio of clients?

I should also mention; I have a fairly fast connection: 20mbps down, 10mbps up, and I know my ISP caps bandwidth at 250GB. I can't imagine that in my situation, SB would be eating up a huge amount of that bandwidth would it?

Scrapebox uses A TON of bandwidth for the linkchecker.

For example I just checked one of my websites on a list I just ran of 2,500 URLs and SB said it used 801.21 MBs of bandwidth.

So assuming you'll be looking for stuff like AA links etc. where you're gonna have to run through a ton of URLs with linkchecker, you will probably run into a bandwidth issue, especially if running multiple instances.

A lot of VPSs have unmetered bandwidth, so if you are even going to use SB on a medium size scale you should make the switch or you are going to run into issues with your ISP (Like I did).

 

[thxflash]

Running it on a VPS will allow more threads to be run than a typical home internet connection. And you will have the benefit of not using up your system resources on your home machine while running it on a VPS.

Hope that helps!

 

[bertbaby]

If your a newbie run it from home first and see how you actually use. A lot of newbies get lost with SB and even if they get it running they often fail in monetizing their SB investment. If you feel bogged down then move up to the VPS.

Baby steps otherwise your pissing away money.

 

[on the r15e]

Gyuman: thanks; I was curious as to how much bandwidth SB uses. One thing I was just thinking about though; and this steps back to one of the questions I had in my last post: If I'm using proxies, is my ISP still able to track my bandwidth usage? As I mentioned earlier; I do use HMA. Would I be able to use HMA in place of using private proxies, and will this help conceal how much bandwidth I'm actually using from my ISP?

 

[Gyuman82]

Gyuman: thanks; I was curious as to how much bandwidth SB uses. One thing I was just thinking about though; and this steps back to one of the questions I had in my last post: If I'm using proxies, is my ISP still able to track my bandwidth usage? As I mentioned earlier; I do use HMA. Would I be able to use HMA in place of using private proxies, and will this help conceal how much bandwidth I'm actually using from my ISP?

Yes Proxies will not save you from bandwidth usage.

I got banned by my ISP and I was using like 40 private proxies or so at the time when I first started.

A proxy might help you to not get banned from commenting on blogs, but with regards to bandwidth usage your ISP will know that there is a ton of bandwidth being sucked up by your home.

 

[azguru]

I run it on a Windows 7 PC alongside multiple programs at the same time. I just use private proxies. It works great for me

 

[bertbaby]

Depending on your ISP they will see the traffic burst and may assume you are running a server but not necessarily a SB server. If you run it 24x7 then go VPS. Get to that point first.

 

[on the r15e]

Baby steps otherwise your pissing away money.

Exactly. That's really the point of this thread; I want to take the first steps, but if you check out all the information that's out there, not many people really address that.

I'm looking to take those first steps, but as with anything new; mistakes are going to be made along the way. I don't want to end up making a mistake that causes my ISP to drop me, or get my sites banned. I'd rather ask questions first and get some foresight, rather than learning the hard way.