Residential vs datacenter IPs
The difference is not technical quality — it's who the address is registered to, and that registration is public.
A residential IP belongs to a consumer ISP and reads as a real visitor. A datacenter IP belongs to a hosting provider — AWS, Hetzner, OVH — whose ranges are published and instantly recognizable. That is why datacenter traffic gets blocked first: identifying it requires no detection at all, just a range lookup.
The five network types, side by side
| Type | Registered to | How sites see it | Block behavior | Live example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential | Consumer ISPs (Comcast, Deutsche Telekom…) | Real visitor | Rarely — unless burned by abuse history | 73.158.0.1 |
| Mobile | Mobile carriers (T-Mobile, Vodafone…) | Real visitor on CGNAT — thousands share one IP | Almost never outright; too much collateral | 172.58.4.1 |
| Business | Enterprises, offices, institutions | Legitimate but non-consumer | Middle tier — often challenged, rarely blocked | — |
| Datacenter | AWS, Google Cloud, Hetzner, OVH… | Machine infrastructure | First thing anti-bot systems filter | 3.5.140.1 |
| Tor / known proxy | Anonymizing networks, public proxy lists | Anonymized traffic | Flagged or challenged on sight | 185.220.101.34 |
Where residential proxies fit
A residential proxy routes traffic through a real consumer connection, so the exit IP is genuinely residential at the network level. Detection therefore shifts to proxy intelligence: known proxy ranges, abuse history, session behavior. "Is the IP residential?" and "is it a known proxy?" are separate questions — this checker answers both.
That's also why vendor claims like "100% residential" are only half the story. The network type can be perfect while the specific address is burned — listed in abuse feeds from previous tenants of the same proxy pool. Check the risk score, not just the type.
Why mobile IPs are the strongest
Mobile carriers put thousands of real devices behind one CGNAT address. Blocking a mobile IP means blocking all of them — so anti-fraud systems almost never do it outright. That shared-fate property is why mobile proxies command premium prices, and why a mobile verdict is the strongest residential-family signal this checker reports.
See it for yourself
Check your own IP → or read the methodology.