When operating TikTok, is a residential network (ISP) necessarily better than a computer room network (hosting)?

What is a computer room network (hosting) and a residential network (ISP)?

What is the difference between the hosting and ISP networks used to operate TikTok? What do they mean? Let's first give a very simple explanation of the two:

For example, if you are working on TikTok in the US, it is equivalent to using the mobile phone in your hand, but your network is not a domestic network, because you have to "move" the US network needed for TikTok in the US to your mobile phone.

If you move the network of a personal computer or mobile phone in the United States to your mobile phone, then this is an exclusive ISP network, that is, an exclusive residential network. It is called a residential network because the ASN of the IP address of such a network will be displayed as an ISP.

However, this type of residential network is used more for operating TikTok's short videos, and not many live broadcasts. As for the reason, price factors are one reason, but the more important factor is that the instantaneous bandwidth of residential IPs provided by many residential IP service providers cannot support TikTok live broadcasts.

In the operation of TikTok, the network of cloud servers (vps) is currently used more frequently.

If you move a cloud server network to your mobile phone, then this is a dedicated data center network, which is what we call a hosting network. It is called a data center network because the ASN type of the IP address of such a network will be displayed as hosting.

So how do you determine whether the network you use to operate TikTok is a data center network (hosting) or a residential network (ISP)?

The simplest way is to keep the network environment of your mobile phone when operating TikTok, enter the website http://ipinfo.io in the browser, and then look at the two items of asn and company:

The asn and company type of the residential IP is isp, and the asn and company type of the computer room IP is hosting.

The query results of the residential IP at http://ipinfo.io are similar to the following:

The query results of the computer room IP at http://ipinfo.io are similar to the following:

Some residential IP providers provide residential IPs whose ASN type is displayed as isp, but the company type is displayed as business. The query results of such IPs on http://ipinfo.io are similar to the following:

This kind of residential network can be called a single ISP, and the residential network mentioned above can be called a dual ISP. As for operating TikTok, is it necessarily better to use a dual ISP residential network than a single ISP residential network?

It is possible, but for operating TikTok, the best way is to prepare multiple new accounts to post videos and do AB testing:

Test the basic traffic for publishing videos, test the degree of risk control of accounts, etc. For example, you can test whether there is a significant difference in the basic traffic for publishing videos between accounts in a dual-ISP network environment and accounts in a single-ISP network environment.

When operating TikTok, is it better to use a residential network (ISP) rather than a data center network (hosting)?

Let's first talk about the difference between residential networks (ISPs) and computer room networks (hosting), from the perspective of IP types:

The former represents a real user accessing the Internet, or at least a user or machine program disguised as a real user accessing the Internet;

The latter means that you may not be a real user, but a machine program, or even if you are a real user, you use certain proxy methods when accessing the Internet, and you deliberately conceal the relevant information of the real IP address of the network you use.

At some point, TikTok will try to distinguish whether the user using Tik Tok is an ISP or hosting IP. A situation encountered in an actual test is:

Taking Android phones as an example, after downloading and installing TikTok, when registering a TikTok account, if you are using an ISP's network, you can normally register an account without email verification; but for a hosting network, you will generally be required to verify the registered email before you can successfully register an account.

In addition, due to the low cost of hosting IPs and other reasons, some people who use hosting networks will do some operations on some websites, such as sending batch private messages to users, following batch users, making batch comments, etc. In the view of the platform, these are malicious traffic diversion operations that destroy the platform ecology and do not meet the platform requirements. Therefore, on many platforms, the probability of hosting networks triggering risk control is inherently higher than that of ISP networks.

For the TikTok platform, is the ISP IP necessarily better than the hosting IP? For example: using the ISP network to send videos, is the basic traffic and live broadcast reasoning of the video better than hosting? Is the risk control of the ISP lower than that of hosting? These questions need to be discussed in many different situations:

For example, in 2023, if you operate TikTok, the risk control mechanism and streaming mechanism under the hosting and ISP network will be very different from those in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

In addition, taking the US as an example, accounts that currently have e-commerce permissions, that is, accounts with e-commerce permissions for local stores, accounts with semi-closed-loop e-commerce permissions, or accounts with e-commerce permissions for semi-closed-loop central stores, and accounts without e-commerce permissions, have different risk control and streaming mechanisms (mainly live streaming) under the hosting and ISP networks.

Specifically, when operating TikTok, there may be benefits to using a residential network (ISP):

1. Video traffic: at least in 2023, taking the actual situation in the United States as an example, multiple videos with the same template (video background, video products, video shooting format, and BGM are all the same), all released by new accounts, the basic playback of the ISP's network can reach 800-1000, but the basic playback of the hosting network is only 300-500.

Many people think that as long as the video content is high-quality, the video will still be popular in the network hosted in the computer room. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this statement, but actual tests have shown that there is a difference in basic playback volume between the residential ISP network and the computer room hosting network.

2. Live streaming: After January and February 2023, accounts with thousands of fans in the US region, that is, accounts with thousands of fans, or accounts with thousands of fans, generally have no streaming after the broadcast, that is, no people come in. This problem has been encountered by almost all accounts with thousands of fans in the US region.

Some people have tried to solve the problem of thousands of fans in the US broadcasting without streaming, which is to use a soft router + residential IP network to simulate the network environment as close to the local environment as possible. However, there is no guarantee of the effect of this and whether it can guarantee 100% streaming.

If a US account has e-commerce permissions, the account does not need to use a soft router + residential IP, which is a more troublesome operation, like a wild broadcast account in the US.

For example, if you have an account in the US with semi-closed-loop e-commerce permissions, or an account with semi-closed-loop central store e-commerce permissions, then even if you are not using a residential network, even if you are using a hosting network, because you have e-commerce permissions, after the broadcast starts, as long as the account is normal and the mobile phone environment settings are normal, you can basically push the stream, and the probability of no one entering is much lower.

Therefore, from the perspective of risk control of TikTok's live broadcast in the United States, for accounts with e-commerce permissions, even if the network is hosted in a computer room, as long as the account is normal and the mobile phone environment is normal, the streaming after the broadcast will basically be normal.

However, for US accounts without e-commerce permissions, even if you use a residential (ISP) network, there is no guarantee that the stream can be pushed normally after the broadcast starts, and there will still be frequent situations where no one can enter.

3. Sellers who operate TikTok's local stores in China often encounter the problem of store closure. Using a residential network ISP that is consistent with the country where the local store is located and a fingerprint browser, although there is no guarantee that the store will not be closed, the risk of store closure is at least lower than using computer room network hosting.

4. The risk control when registering an account is different. Using an Android phone is slightly more convenient in the ISP's network environment.

We mentioned this before. After downloading and installing TikTok on an Android phone, when registering a TikTok account, if you are using an ISP's network, you can normally register an account without email verification; but for a hosting network, you will generally be required to verify the registered email before you can successfully register an account.

As for the risk control of batch following and batch private messaging in residential networks, is it lower than that of computer room networks? I think it is possible, but I have not done actual AB testing, so I can't give a definite answer.