Raymond.CC Blog

For those of you who aren’t familiar with computers, IP address are a numerical identification that is assigned to devices on a computer network. Each IP address is unique, hence we can easily gain much information from just an IP address. As such, the role of the IP address has been characterized as follows: “A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there.”

Now, with the right tools, we can pinpoint the origin of the computer with the particular IP address to a place on the map. However, the data achieved may not always be correct. This is due to the existence of dynamic IPs. These temporary IP addresses are recycled among other computers of the same ISP, hence the geographical readings achieved from these websites will most likely be the locations of the past owners of the same IP address.

One such solution to identify the geographical location of a specific IP address has been IP2Location. This Malaysian-based Internet R&D company based in Penang enables end-users to detect the country, region, city, latitude, longitude, ZIP code, ISP, domain name, timezone, connection speed, IDD code, area code, weather station code, and weather station name by using merely an IP address. It uses the IP2Location .BIN database as an internal lookup reference and does not require an external network connection. IP2Location Application is available in several platforms such as Windows (GUI or command line) or Linux/Unix (Perl). Following such success and popularity, many similar websites have sprung up, with each claiming to offer a higher accuracy than the latter.


1. IpLocator

This completely free localization service has been fairly accurate from my experience of using it. I have been using this service for almost a year and about 70-80% of the time, the results are always correct. It also provides interesting information about the location found, such as the population, the time zone, the distance to nearby cities and so on.

2. Geolocation

Geolocation by Ipligence is a free service but the end user is only limited to 50 search queries per day, which should be enough for the average user. This was the only website that managed to correctly query my current location based on my IP address at time of writing. Still, I’ve never used it much so I can’t really say for sure what the accuracy rate is like.

3. Syszilla’s Whois Lookup

Syszilla’s Whois Lookup basically query’s the target IP address to [URL="http://www.ripe.net/"]RIPE’s[/URL] database. The inclusion of Google Maps serves to literally paint a better picture of the users location. However, out of 3 tests, all using different IP’s, it wasn’t able to detect my location accurately.

4. Geo-IP

Geo-IP is rather simplistic with minimum information. It also did not fare too well, failing to detect my geographical location on all three counts using different IPs.

5. IpGeoInfo

IpGeoInfo has a simple barebones page layout, but still contains some useful information, which is only useful if it gets your location spot on. You can also query host names which are automatically converted into IP addresses.

6. IP2Location

Although it’s products are mainly shareware, you can input a test IP address on the right side of the page for a demo. I’m not sure how many times you are allowed to do so, but according to what I’ve tested, IP2Location managed to detect my location.

Obviously, these services aren’t very accurate, but at least they provide a rough guide of showing where the location of the target pc. Nonetheless, I’d say that IP2Location is the best of them all, as it does it’s job well most of the time. So, do you know any similar free sites or programs offering the same services? Why not post them in the comments.

Article written by xje4vb2