By finding IP address of yourself or a person you wish to lookup, the geolocation lookup tool provide you with an estimate of where this IP address is located. American Registry of Internet Numbers, also known as ARIN, maintains the Whois Database containing contact and registration information for IP addresses. The companies requiring IP addresses obtain and register them with ARIN, and those IP addresses obtained are assigned to their users and customers. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) assign a dynamic IP address to a user when their customers connect to the Internet. Since a company may be located throughout a large region (or a country), the accuracy of geolocation may vary depending on how they assign them to their users.
What makes more difficult is the IP addresses maintained by cell phone providers. As cell phones roaming around cell towers, they obtain new IP address as users move. The wireless telephony providers service their users nationally, and the pool of IP addresses used doesn't necessarily provide accurate geolocation. So, how accurate is IP Location?
There are more than a dozen IP geolocation database providers, and the accuracy of each provider is different. Each provider gets their IP address information from ARIN, but the assignment changes regularly as some companies release unwanted IP addresses and others obtain a new block of IP addresses. Also, the blocks of IP addresses assigned to many companies can, in turn, assign them to their users however they want without geographic boundaries. This makes very difficult to pinpoint geolocation of an IP address. Also, the accuracy of geolocation data differs by providers so care should be given when picking a data source. We, IPlocation.net, offer data from a handful of companies so you'll have access to a few whom you can try.
Rough measure of geolocation accuracy
- Country: 95% to 99% accuracy
- Region (State): 55% to 80% accuracy
- City:50% to 75% accuracy
The rough measure given above is based on the claims made by some of the data providers, and the actual result may vary from provider to provider. Also, looking up a geolocation from your cell phone may result in less accuracy than home-based IP address. In addition, users who connect through a VPN or similar privacy service such as PlanetVPN will appear to be located where the VPN exit node is. This can substantially reduce the usefulness of IP-based geolocation for identifying a user’s true location.
Can you locate a person from an IP address?
Unlikely. However, you may be able to identify a person from an IP address if you know the IP address and exact time when the IP address is used. Most Internet Service Providers keep a log of how IP addresses are assigned to users, so you can request to identify the person if you have the subpoena or authority from law enforcement. The usage log will determine the IP address assignment to the user's account, and reveal owner's name and contact information.
Conclusion
IP-based Geolocation lookup provides you with a rough estimate of where the IP address may be located within country, region and city. The accuracy of the lookup vary by database providers, and it should only be used as a rough guideline. To track your lost cell phone or locate a person, you may have to use other services.
Geolocation FAQs
IP-based Geolocation is a mapping of an IP address to a geographic location of an Internet-connected computing or mobile device. Geolocation involves mapping an IP address to the country, region (city), latitude/longitude, ISP, and domain name, among other useful information.
There are a number of commercially available geolocation databases, and their pricing and accuracy may vary. Ip2location, MaxMind, and Tamo Soft offer fee-based databases that can be easily integrated into a web application. Most geolocation database vendors offer APIs and sample codes (in ASP, PHP, .NET, and Java) that can be used to retrieve geolocation data. We use a number of commercial databases to offer this service on our website.
There are also freely available geolocation databases. Vendors offering commercial databases often provide a Lite or Community edition that includes IP-to-Country or less accurate data from many months ago. Ip2Country.net and Webhosting.info (Directi) offer free IP-to-Country databases that can be integrated into your web application. Some companies also provide free web services to display the geolocation of an IP address on your website.
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Comments (4)
If you install a VPN will it affect your smart home devices
Jan 13, 2019 at 01:10 PMNo, VPN will not affect your smart home network.
My phone have been lost than i want to find him.
Mar 09, 2020 at 08:42 PMDepending on the type of device you use, the method to find your lost phone may differ. Please visit How to track your lost smartphone? for additional info.
HI,I have Azure Public IP located in the India Datacenter. When I find my IP on the Tool Geolocation data from IPGeolocation.io (Product: API, real-time) Country showing the United States and ISP Microsoft CorporationPlease confirm this issue..
Dec 19, 2020 at 04:52 AMThe Azure server providing a service to you is most likely located in the USA.
Besides the complication of cellular network, it is also worth noting that by default even the IP address assigned to home wifi router by your ISP is frequently changing. Every ISP has their own service areas where they serve with a fixed range of IP address. This range can be small or large based on the size of your ISP. The other popular trends that are also impacting the accuracy of IP geolocation is the usages of VPN/proxies.
Dec 21, 2020 at 04:28 PMHowever, the usages of IP geolocation technology is becoming more important than ever due to the increase in cybercrime and e-commerce fraud. So the job of IP geolocation is not just to detect the location of a user, but also provide other vital information about the network that can help businesses reduce online frauds.