Why do ip location checkers differ?

marcodemarco · 20-02-2009 1:00pm #1

One says i am in Dublin, one Wexford and one Waterford? Same IP and same IE session

Snaga · 20-02-2009 1:04pm

Because an ip address is not usually mapped to a specific geographical location. Sometimes the ad services just know that its an ip address assigned to an ISP in ireland - so you can get ad's directed at you for various locations in ireland.

Saruman · 20-02-2009 1:07pm

Maybe they do not all check all of the hops? so the last hop one checks is in wexford? I have no idea.

would help if you gave some examples of where this happens so we can check ourselves.

watty · 20-02-2009 1:26pm

Different people have different databases. The only mostly sure thing is the ISP. The ISP can move IPs around. Geolocation mostly gets the country right however.

It's very unreliable with a National ISP to tell you what town you are in.

marcodemarco · 20-02-2009 2:13pm

Saruman wrote: »

would help if you gave some examples of where this happens so we can check ourselves.

would be interested in your exp
http://www.ipgp.net/index.php
http://whatismyipaddress.com/
http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/

Onikage · 20-02-2009 2:40pm

Spot on watty. Geographical IP is (almost) never calculated in real-time. Companies such as the ones listed above use commodity databases that match IP to ISP headquarters.

jor el · 20-02-2009 4:15pm

marcodemarco wrote: »

would be interested in your exp
http://www.ipgp.net/index.php
http://whatismyipaddress.com/
http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/

According to those links, I'm in Dublin on two, and Cork on the other. None of those is right, I'm in Limerick.

As watty said, it's just not possible to geographically locate someone from the IP address, unless you had access to the ISPs information on who they're assigning the specific IP to. That would probably be illegal though.

Saruman · 20-02-2009 4:44pm

Those sites all got my IP location right, well as far as Dublin but this ip is Ballycoolin and it said i was somewhere in south Dublin.

That is as good as it gets unless you are in an episode of 24

watty · 20-02-2009 5:41pm

Your own ISP of course knows where you are (as close as headend, exchange or mast sector anyway) and exactly when you are using it.

This applies to Cable, fibre, DSL, Fixed Wireless and Mobile Wireless.

On two way satellite you could be anywhere on the footprint:

Example is UK based Avanti.

If you put a bigger dish it makes you seem to be more in the pink bit

With satellite you could put a 4.8m dish in the sahara and have geo-location in Amsterdam.

Fuzzy Clam · 20-02-2009 6:11pm

watty wrote: »

On two way satellite you could be anywhere on the footprint:

Example is UK based Avanti.

If you put a bigger dish it makes you seem to be more in the pink bit With satellite you could put a 4.8m dish in the sahara and have geo-location in Amsterdam.

My 2 way sat always put me in Ireland. Usually in Roscommon though.

watty · 20-02-2009 7:46pm

You should edit the quote to have only a line of text. No need for whole pic

It's what ever your sat supplier has told the database providers. If the database makers are told nothing they put the HQ of the ISP that has the IP.

jmcc · 20-02-2009 8:32pm

marcodemarco wrote: »

One says i am in Dublin, one Wexford and one Waterford? Same IP and same IE session

It depends on the ISP, the node to which you are connecting and the IP range database that is being used. Some ISPs will, where it is a business IP have registered full WHOIS data for the IPs. Others will not. The node to which you are connected may also be identified so it might be covering a number of counties. At a guess you are using Eircom for some of those connections.

The IP range databases are the main cause of the problem. The delegated ranges lists of IPs (the lists the cheap services use) tend to only use the country level IP ranges. The RIPE WHOIS data gives subnet resolution so any small range of IPs in European IP ranges will be identified. The Dublin identification is probably identifies the IP based on the IP ranges allocated to your ISP. The Waterford and Wexford identifications may be identifying the POP through which you are connecting.

Most IP lookups are based on these IP lists and realtime location resolution is rarely done because most people don't have the resources to do it properly.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc · 20-02-2009 8:36pm

marcodemarco wrote: »

would be interested in your exp
http://www.ipgp.net/index.php

Correct and accurate. RIPE IP data.

http://whatismyipaddress.com/

Wrong. Delegated lists probably.

http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/

Wrong. Delegated ranges lists.

This is on my own IP which happens to be part of a Class C range.

Regards...jmcc

conolan · 25-02-2009 9:20am

Did an article on this last year, helps explain.
http://www.webwizards.ie/geolocation.asp
As a further update, I was ABSOLUTELY stunned yesterday when
http://www.ip-adress.com AND http://whatismyipaddress.com got my location right, as in Dunmore East, Co. Waterford.
All the others say Dublin.
This I did not expect. Is it Imagine (because they have fixed IP broadband)?
JMMC - I'm getting the exact opposite of your results.

Why do ip location checkers differ?

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