Does your mobile proxy need to come from the same/similar location every time?

F

fuqRedit

Newbie
Joined
Nov 10, 2025
Messages
10
Reaction score
3
The proxy provider I'm trying out now only lets me 'reliably' choose proxy provider by "country", which seems insane to me. Wouldn't it look suspicious if I use the proxy and in one session it has me in California, and then the next time I log in I'm in Florida, and then the next time I log in I'm in Nebraska, etc.? It seems extremely suspicious, so I've been trying to add in more specific parameters.

Technically this provider lets me choose by "city", but it's not reliable. The proxy isn't always available for specific cities. I'll set it for Chicago for example, and it works, and then 2 hours later, or 2 days later when I use the profile it will fail.

Same with targeting by ASN. I recognize that ASN won't always get me the same city, maybe that asn has centers in different parts of the country, but at least it's predictable, yet I run into the same issue with the proxy string working in one session and not another. But, if I only target by country, then it seems to work reliably.

So I'm wondering.. is it a problem if the location gets changed each session?
 
Advertise on BHW
baobab said:
Yes frequent location jumps can look suspicious. Same country is usually fine but stable city/ASN per session is safer rotating too widely they can trigger flags especially for logins
Click to expand...
That's what I thought.. I'm currently referring to smartproxy / decodo, and apparently they're a big name, so I'm surprised that they don't provide stable and reliable city sessions. I mean they technically do but they never work consistently which is irritating.
 
If the ''by city'' setting is not reliable, I do talk to the provider. It's also a good indicator if you're staying on the same ISP when the proxy IP changes. Since real people rarely change provider.
 
Actually ip geo isn’t as precise and unambiguous as it’s commonly thought to be.

Let’s say you take a real mobile phone and, while it’s lying in the same spot, you toggle airplane mode on and off a hundred times. I guarantee you that several of these ips will show geo in a different city.
Why does this happen? Because ip geo is just a database of «ip <=> its geo». These databases are collected with a delay relative to reality and can be outdated.

Country-level geo of ip is fairly reliable info. State, and especially city level, not really. Carrier should be more stable than city or state, but variations are possible too, especially when it comes to carriers that belong to same group of companies.

But at the same time, totally random jumps across whole country are also not good.

Normal natural behavior is when, let’s say, 80% of ips geo roughly in one state, and other 20% jump around country wherever. So there should be some dominant location anyway.
 
Bouncing across the country between sessions is a major red flag for security algorithms. Most platforms track "impossible travel" and will likely lock your account or trigger endless verification loops if you "teleport" from California to Nebraska in a matter of minutes.
To keep your digital footprint believable, your IP changes should stay within the same metropolitan area or state. If location-specific targeting is inconsistent, you should prioritize proxies with longer rotation periods (sticky sessions). Keeping the same IP for several hours, rather than rotating every few minutes, provides the stability needed to mimic a real user and avoid being flagged.
 
Ideally, it should stay in the same city so you don't have problems with the account in the future; if they are going to move it, at least make sure it's to another device located in the same city.
 
Yeah, random state hopping looks sloppy, keep each profile on one consistent geo.
 
Yeah honestly, it can look a bit off if your location keeps jumping around like that. If country targeting is the only thing that works reliably, you’re fine, just try to keep the same IP for longer when you can so it feels more consistent.
 
When using rotating proxies, especially for social media accounts, I think it’s best to keep the location consistent within one area. For example, a normal person might move around during the day, like going from home to the office, but those locations are usually close to each other. So changing IPs within a reasonable time frame and within the same general location is typically fine.
However, if your IP keeps jumping between locations that are far apart, that kind of movement isn’t common in real life and can raise suspicion on platforms. So overall, it’s better to use proxies that can target a specific city.
 
fuqRedit said:
The proxy provider I'm trying out now only lets me 'reliably' choose proxy provider by "country", which seems insane to me. Wouldn't it look suspicious if I use the proxy and in one session it has me in California, and then the next time I log in I'm in Florida, and then the next time I log in I'm in Nebraska, etc.? It seems extremely suspicious, so I've been trying to add in more specific parameters.

Technically this provider lets me choose by "city", but it's not reliable. The proxy isn't always available for specific cities. I'll set it for Chicago for example, and it works, and then 2 hours later, or 2 days later when I use the profile it will fail.

Same with targeting by ASN. I recognize that ASN won't always get me the same city, maybe that asn has centers in different parts of the country, but at least it's predictable, yet I run into the same issue with the proxy string working in one session and not another. But, if I only target by country, then it seems to work reliably.

So I'm wondering.. is it a problem if the location gets changed each session?
Click to expand...
Yeah, constant geo-jumping across sessions can definitely look suspicious especially for accounts that expect behavioral consistency. If your provider is unstable on city/ASN, I’d just stick to country-level and run it through something like GoLogin to keep fingerprints/session consistency tight.
 
Jumping states in two hours triggers 'impossible travel' flags. Mobile IPs rotate locally, not across the whole continent.
If city targeting drops, your provider is overselling shared devices. Country level is fine for raw scraping, but bouncing timezones with stealth accounts equals an instant shadowban. Get a dedicated proxy or a provider with sticky regional ASNs.
 
i would try to find a provider with good state or city proxies. you want to limit the amount of variability in locations.
 
For social media (IG, TikTok) state-level jumps within the same country do flag — those platforms correlate login IP city with device GPS history, and cross-state teleporting breaks that signal. For scraping static targets it doesn't matter. Fix: use sticky sessions (most providers support 10-30min stickiness per IP) rather than per-request rotation — that way one session stays pinned to one city cluster even if city filtering is unreliable.
 
HeroSMS said:
Jumping states in two hours triggers 'impossible travel' flags. Mobile IPs rotate locally, not across the whole continent.
If city targeting drops, your provider is overselling shared devices. Country level is fine for raw scraping, but bouncing timezones with stealth accounts equals an instant shadowban. Get a dedicated proxy or a provider with sticky regional ASNs.
Click to expand...

switching ips on things such as sm account will get you
flagged up pretty sharpish .
 
the city label is not the main tell... its whether the profile keeps landing in the same carrier pool and timezone pattern. mobile geo is messy so a ip showing another part of the country is fine.

what would worry me more is a a session pin dying after a few hours or dats. usually that means u are not getting stable addinity to the same device or subnet.
 
I care more about session consistency than exact city. Same country and same carrier profile usually matters more than whether it says Chicago or another nearby city. What I try to avoid is ugly jumps all over the map between logins.
 
fuqRedit said:
The proxy provider I'm trying out now only lets me 'reliably' choose proxy provider by "country", which seems insane to me. Wouldn't it look suspicious if I use the proxy and in one session it has me in California, and then the next time I log in I'm in Florida, and then the next time I log in I'm in Nebraska, etc.? It seems extremely suspicious, so I've been trying to add in more specific parameters.

Technically this provider lets me choose by "city", but it's not reliable. The proxy isn't always available for specific cities. I'll set it for Chicago for example, and it works, and then 2 hours later, or 2 days later when I use the profile it will fail.

Same with targeting by ASN. I recognize that ASN won't always get me the same city, maybe that asn has centers in different parts of the country, but at least it's predictable, yet I run into the same issue with the proxy string working in one session and not another. But, if I only target by country, then it seems to work reliably.

So I'm wondering.. is it a problem if the location gets changed each session?
Click to expand...
Your instinct is correct — country-only targeting that drops you in California, then Florida, then Nebraska across logins is a real problem for any account that's supposed to be one stationary person. Normal people don't wake up in a different state every session. What you want to preserve isn't just "US," it's a plausible story for that specific account.

Some geographic drift is fine — the amount is what matters. A real user's IP can shift around within a metro or region as their carrier reassigns addresses, and even a legit residential IP isn't perfectly nailed in place. So bouncing around within, say, one city or one state reads as normal. Bouncing coast to coast every login does not. The platform isn't looking for a frozen pixel-perfect location, it's looking for a coherent one.
 
There are a number of reasons why you may see this randomized geographical behavior. Some reasons can be controlled, others cannot.

For example, in my experience, Verizon has a tendency to provision IP addresses at random locations through use of a carrier-grade NAT, or CGNAT. This is something the proxy provider has no control over, but they should be up front about it. Other providers, such as T-Mobile, also use a CGNAT; however, they also use smaller blocks of addresses and provision the smaller blocks within their carrier markets. This helps considerably when it comes to city or region geolocation.

Aside from carrier-grade complexities, there are also proxy provider reasons, such as non-dedicated proxies or proxies that come from a fast-rotating pool that can contain multiple carriers. Some providers are also 2 to 4 levels deep reselling someone else's proxies, or proxies they are not a first-party seller of.

My recommendation for the United States is to stick with a provider that sells proxies they control from their own sites, and to use T-Mobile where possible.
 
Advertise on BHW
You must log in or register to reply here.
Sign up now!

Main Menu

Home Main Forum List Black Hat SEO White Hat SEO BHW Newbie Guide Blogging Black Hat Tools Social Media Downloads

Marketplace

Account Selling Content / Copywriting EBooks / Methods Hosting Misc Proxies For Sale SEO - Link building SEO - Packages Social Media Social Media - Panels Web Design More

Making Money

Affiliate Programs Hire a Freelancer IM Journeys Making Money Pay Per Click Site Flipping Want to Buy

BlackHat World

Dispute Resolution Forum Suggestions & Feedback Introductions Lounge
Back
Top