IP to geolocation APIs provide you with the location of a device that your web visitors have been using to view your website based on the IP address that they are using to view your website. The API may be used to determine the position of any electrical device, such as a smartphone or a laptop computer. It then offers location data points, which can comprise continent, nation, region, city, latitude, as well as longitude. These data points can be obtained from several sources. Some APIs also return extra information that is valuable. Postal codes, time zones, and even the currency of a given area are examples of what is meant by identifiers. You will find a number of geolocation database providers in the market offering the best services.
What is the procedure for IP geolocation?
IP geolocation provides information about the geographical location of a user's device. Despite this, it is only capable of displaying an approximate physical position, not your specific location. It will also be unable to reveal your location until the gadget is in your possession.
In other words, if you're carrying your mobile device about town while traveling around town, IP-based geolocation would provide information about your whereabouts throughout the day.
But, with the aid of IP location, a tool that you really can use yourself, let's take a closer look at what IP location can achieve in a more realistic scenario.
When you visit the page, you will be able to find out instantly where your IP address is located. According to what you can see, the service provides your IP address, IP location (city and country), hostname, Internet service provider, browser type, and a variety of other relevant information.
What is the accuracy of geolocation databases?
The precision of the data you are provided will be around 90 percent exact at the nation level (depending on which source you pick), but at the city level, that accuracy level will be significantly lower than that of the country level. This is visible when you're using a service to verify your IP address online, which may be done using a web browser. If you are not in a big metropolitan region, for example, a suburb, your IP address may be pointing to the heart of a major metropolitan area, despite the fact that you are not there. However, the State and Country will almost certainly be correct.
What you may expect from the geolocation data made accessible by geolocation database providers is as follows:
It is possible that location information will be correct for large areas but not for specific cities. In other cases, it might not be an issue at all, but it is something to bear in mind if you want city-level location precision in your data collection and analysis.
Different APIs have varying levels of data accuracy since they acquire IP to geolocation data from a variety of different data sources. Some exclusively make use of data from Regional Internet Registries or RIRs. Other APIs, in addition to RIRs data, make use of data supplied by ISPs and browser geolocation in order to increase the accuracy of the results. The majority of APIs will provide you with nation info that is 95% correct. Unluckily, they are not as consistent when it comes to city or regional statistics, which is especially true if your site visitor also isn't situated in a major city or metro area.
