Starting a proxy guide -- for dummies

[kahrn]

I am writing this little 'dummies guide' to help anyone that is interested in starting a web proxy and attempting to make money from it.

Let's make a few things clear first:

1. Proxies are not a 'get rich' scheme. You'll never be rich from the proxy industry.
2. The proxy scene is saturated with proxies, making it hard for anyone to exceed the norm.
3. If you have no experience with webdesign/webhosting you might struggle. If you do, it may be worth posting a question in the Proxy Owners section.
4. The money you make may not be worth the time you spend getting things set up.
   

That said, if you want the following, then it may be worth it:

1. Make a bit of small income
2. Help uncensor the world!
   

A few stages exist before you'll make any revenue from a proxy.

Finding a host
First and foremost, you will need to find a web host. A web host is a place in which you can host your proxy on the internet and point a domain to it. Explaining all of this is beyond the scope of this guide. An important factor to remember when choosing a webhost is that you will require lots of bandwidth if you are hosting a proxy.

Most webhosts frown upon web proxies, so you may have to shop around.

Installing a proxy script
Various web proxy scripts exist. My favorite happens to be phproxy (used by both tubetunnel.info and websneak.co.uk. You'll probably prefer an easy to administer script such as Glype when starting out though.

Income model
The most common method of generating income is to place advertisements on proxies using easy-to-use advertising programs such as Adsense or Adbrite.

The advertising provider will provide you with code that you must then embed on your website. Once you have figured that out you may want to experiment with the best areas to place advertisements to gain more income.

Another method of generating income is to use a private subscription-based model in which people pay to use your proxy. The advantage of such is that you'll probably generate more income and the proxy will probably be a lot faster. The downside is it's very hard to achieve such a model as so many good, free proxies already exist.

Promoting your proxy
Once you have acheieved all of the above, you'll need to promote your proxy. Various listing sites exist, such as our very own hexalist.com. It may be worth checking out this thread for sites in which you can promote your proxy. You will also want to promote your proxy using mailing lists/google groups and other mediums such as word of mouth.

If all goes well, you'll start generating a small income from your proxy. At which point you may decide to form more proxies or even an entire proxy network.

Good luck!