Talk:Internet geolocation

inks shown below
It strikes me the links shown below are much more useful than the (inaccurate) link to DMOZ on the main page (it actually goes to the general IP page, not a geolocation page)... Any chance of adding these in their place.

-Ben

I completely agree - the DMOZ page isn't even a dedicated geolocation page!! - Andy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.124.8.210 (talk) 11:25, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd love to know
I'd love to know if anyone has seen any open source software that can do this..

- Dave

GeoIP is an open source geolocation library. It works with a free database that looks up the country of an IP address.

IP2Location has a free version of IP2Location geolocation library and database for IPv6.

ipligence.com Free Geolocation database project to locate IP addresses

Oughtn't these questions be subsumed in a general discussion on privacy on the Internet rather than being commingled with what purports to be a technical discussion? -- ekzept

FYI these are unreferenced links
FYI these are unreferenced links from a previous version of the article: -- Robocoder ( t|c ) 14:30, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
 * W3C Geolocation (DRAFT) example
 * DNSBL geolocation is a method of obtaining a country code for a given IP, via a DNSBL style lookup.
 * TraceMyIP.org is a public geolocation acquisition tool that utilizes the end-user's IP Address as a primary source of analysis.
 * LiveIPMap.com is a free geolocation mapping tool using IPv4 address as reference.
 * http://geoip.wtanaka.com is a free geolocation service which can be queried via HTTP
 * Wandering IPs is simple IP geolocation/network monitoring software for Windows.
 * geoPlugin is a free webmaster tool providing geo-localized information on IPs with no software installation required.

Mac address
yes, for the protocol your statement is right, the mac addess is only needed to the next hop, however, mac address number, hdd unique number, external storage device numbers, motherboard unique numbers are also collected for validation like "genuine" and other reasons, the fact that these numbers can be retreaved by specific software makes them fit for geolocation software. Mion 11:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your opinnion, the article fails to explain clearly what different geolocation methods are out there and what works best for each one. Edcross 8 December 2006

Feel free to add some -:) Mion 12:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Explanation of approaches
The general explanation of geolocation is very misleading. It lists "one approach" using IP address. Whether people approach things the right way or the wrong way, they are taking "one approach." While a person can certainly approach it that way, it may or may not work. If approaches are listed, the article should discuss their feasibility and reliability. In some cases, that approach might result in accurate information. In other cases, it might give the location of the ISP and might not be close to the user's location. The article implies that it will give the location down to the level of the specific user. I live 78 miles from my ISP, and I'm in Silicon Valley so it's not as if the ISP is in the major city where I might want to eat and shop. I'm not here to debate the merits of any given approach. But the article should discuss objectively what different approaches might yield in terms of accuracy. This can be contrasted with other approaches. For example, WiFi might give a more accurate result, but not all users have it, while all users have IP addresses. Thus IP geolocation is higher on the feasibility scale but lower on the accuracy scale. 50.0.106.155 (talk) 18:11, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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Incorrect information about MaxMind mapping
This statement in the Data Sources section is incorrect: "A farmstead northeast of Potwin, Kansas became the default site of 600 million IP addresses (due to their lack of fine granularity) when the Massachusetts-based digital mapping company MaxMind changed the putative geographic center of the contiguous United States from 39.8333333,-98.585522 to 38.0000,-97.0000." I recommend deleting it or modifying it for accuracy.

The geographic latitude and longitude coordinates MaxMind used for the US were taken from the CIA World Factbook and were not intended to represent the geographic center of the US. See the Geographic Coordinates section of the US page where the CIA gives 38 00 N, 97 00 W as coordinates for the US. As such, MaxMind did not change the putative geographic center of the US as mentioned in the above quote. MaxMind simply used CIA World Factbook data. See https://web.archive.org/web/20130503091315/http://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/legacy/codes/country_latlon where MaxMind published the latitudes and longitudes used for various countries in their GeoIP Legacy products, each taken from the CIA World Factbook. Jasonketola (talk) 18:56, 15 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Hmm. That's not what the source cited in the article claims, which doesn't mention anything about the World Factbook. As much as I would love to take your word that the coordinates chosen were based on the CIA publication, under Wikipedia policy you should support your statement with a reliable source that is also independent of MaxMind (i.e. no press releases, no official company webpages). Thanks, Altamel (talk) 04:52, 19 April 2016 (UTC)


 * You can find the CIA World Factbook coordinates for the US here: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2011.html#us. The article used as a source in the entry states "Technically, the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of the center spot are 39°50′N 98°35′W. In digital maps, that number is an ugly one: 39.8333333,-98.585522. So back in 2002, when MaxMind was first choosing the default point on its digital map for the center of the U.S., it decided to clean up the measurements and go with a simpler, nearby latitude and longitude: 38°N 97°W or 38.0000,-97.0000." without citing a source. If it were the case that MaxMind wanted to clean up the data, presumably it would have been much more likely to pick 40.0000,-99.0000 or 39.0000,-98.00000 (using rounding or truncation). The article suggests a very strange choice in cleaning data was made, and again without citing a souce. Does the link to the CIA World Factbook clear up where these rather different lat/lon coordinates came from? Thanks, Jason Jasonketola (talk) 13:30, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified (January 2018)
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Data sources
I found quite obvious citing "Merging databases from different suppliers" as a data source. Think it's not proper a source. Removed. Brainfrogk4mon (talk) 07:42, 24 March 2021 (UTC)