How does IP geolocating work?

Question

I\'m not looking for a service that does this. I\'m just curious as to how geolocation works.

Answer 1

Basically they guess based on the IP address. somewhere they have a list of ip-address ranges and locations. which they maintain based on lookups against whois, traceroute, and/or user feedback.

MaxMind for instance seems to rely mostly on user feedback to keep its lists current.

People use VPNs amt Proxies to get around IP baes geoblocking. and sometimes the table just have wrong data.

If you want somtjhing that's cheap and mostly works and aren't worried about alienating your users it;s a good solution. don't expect better than 99% of results to be within 2000 miles of the actual user location.