There are some free IP geolocation database providers out there that you can choose from. The service that you choose might not have everything, but as long as it covers your primary use cases, you should be able to extract some value from the database. Some of these services might be more expensive than a small business would like, and some are lacking regarding accuracy and ease of use. When looking at these services, there are a variety of differentiators that make some providers better, and worse than others. There are a wide variety of different services available from which to buy IP geolocation data. Companies providing Geolocation Databases Depending on your use case for the data this might not be an issue at all, but it’s something you want to keep in mind if you need city-level location accuracy. Location info will be accurate for broad areas, but not down to the city level. This is what you can expect from the geolocation data available from providers. ![]() But the State and Country will most likely be accurate. If you are not located in a major metropolitan area, for example in a suburb, your IP address might point to the center of the major metropolitan. ![]() You can see this when you use a service to check your IP address online via a web browser. The accuracy of the data you are given will be about 90 per cent precise at the country level (depending on what source you choose), but at the city level, that accuracy level sharply declines. Depending on the provider you choose, the data you are provided could be collected via either method. Some companies acquire their data through data mining, and others get more accurate data by polling users. These databases are created and maintained by third parties, and thus, the location data for the IP addresses are only as good as the company that manages the data. You’re not necessarily getting the exact location of your visitor, but you are getting the location of the electronic access point they are using to visit your website. So when you look up an IP address, you are provided with the pair of coordinates that are the ‘origin’ of that IP address. These databases of IP addresses contain the latitude and longitude of a particular IP address. In those environments a VPN is needed.Geolocation IP Databases allow you to determine your website visitor’s location. There are limitations to this however, as systems that use Flash will detect the users original IP (as flash generally ignores proxy settings). At WonderProxy we’ve got over 35 servers in over 25 countries, perfect for GeoIP application testing, without the hacks. By using a proxy server you’re able to route all of your web traffic through a specific location, you appear to both your application and whatever systems it interacts with to be there. The inherent problem is that systems you interact with will ignore your hacks, and you’re left with a difficult problem when you move to production: you either lose the ability to test the GeoIP in production, or leave these hacks enabled (while you can attach these hacks to specific IPs to only allow them to work from your office, you’ve now added two additional layers on top of your codebase, that need to be maintained and bug free). ![]() A common technique for testing these systems is to force the system to accept your location as being elsewhere (e.g. Testing these systems presents a challenge, especially when multiple systems are involved (you may control your site, but your billing service might be independently run). ![]() More commonly merchants use a user’s location to select pricing points, display currency, or the most appropriate billing system. Google selects the correct local version ( vs .uk), Amazon may offer a more appropriate local store, Hulu refuses to display content to users not within the United States. Websites are using GeoIP information to customize all manner of services to their end users. You can check to see how your IP geo locates with this test. Other popular providers include: IP2Location and InfoSniper. MaxMind is currently the leader in GeoIP information, providing both free and commercial databases. Depending on the service you use and the users geographical location this data could range from simply the user’s country, to granular detail like which neighbourhood in which city. GeoIP is a technology gaining in popularity, simply put it attaches a geographical location to a user, based on their IP address.
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