Any experience with Geo IP databases?

[mikeyddddd]

Has anyone purchased one of the databases with the geograpical location for IP's?

One of the products has a free feature that only goes down to the country level. Before shelling out the bucks for the version with city info I thought I would try the freebie out.

So I wrote some PHP to pull their info and write it to an image. Does this at least have your country right?

http://www.eazytraffic.com/hello.php

Any info on database experience, particularly with its' accuracy, is appreciated.

[cd34]

I have a few clients that use the city one -- it works pretty well. its not perfect, but, I'd say with about 90% accuracy it gets a city close enough to the surfer. It lists a city that is about 12 miles away from me.

AOL Surfers appear to be from Virginia most of the time.

[mikeyddddd]

Yeah, AOL sends everyone through IP's in VA. I'm sure AOL keeps the real IP for their own purposes.

[Joe]

Your script works for me, although it is a simplified country version. Try the local Geo-IP database. ;)

For the AFF Geo-IP, they work right on spot, but it seems as though it doesn't work more for others as it should.

[Barron]

mikey,

It works for me.

Usually when I see geo-ip tracking it gets close, it shows the city for my ISP. But the other day I was doing some SE research and landed on a page that showed me the correct town I live in. That was pretty spooky. I'm still trying to figure out how they did it.

In the meantime, I want to start working more with geo-ip tracking. Where would I go to purchase a local database?

To take that step further, I'm still looking for java applet that will send me the surfers ip address for those behind a proxy server. Anyone know where I can find that? Or can anyone write it?

[cd34]

If they are behind a proxy, there are several headers that could be present if the proxy isn't 'clean'

X-Forwarded-For
Client-ip

are two that are most frequent.

I think the first real geotargeting I saw was code I wrote in '94 to sell DSL to local businesses and advertise to surfers that were coming from competing ISPs. Then, Altavista was the next one I saw in '99 throwing South Florida advertisements on searches. I was very intrigued by that when Amazon and TV Guide started shortly after that. TV Guide knew where you were by a cookie set when you put in your local TV preferences. CNN collected the data for your zip code for the weather reports, etc.

http://www.maxmind.com/ is the source of the database that most people use. Its pretty easy to use, although, they have no concept of threaded programming so their mod_apache script is a bit useless when you're pushing a lot of traffic.

[Barron]

Thanks! Thats just what I was looking for. |thumb

Now to go turn a profit with it.

[Opti]

Thanks! Thats just what I was looking for. |thumb

Now to go turn a profit with it.

Maxmind's free country database is really only useful for testing.. You can grab the latest IP allocations each day direct from the four registries that handle them (ARIN, RIPE, APNIC and LACNIC) and create a close to perfect country database yourself.

This place also provides a more up to date country database than maxmind.. It's accurate enough for live use imho, but it's usually a week out of date most of the time too. http://ip-to-country.webhosting.info/node/view/6


the City location databases rely on information MaxMind (or whoever is selling it) put together themselves. They create maps of individual ISP routers and IP useage, and even use non web-based info like ISP licence applications that might identify where particular IPs blocks will be restricted to. I'd say you pay for what you get when it comes to buying a database for this level of targetting.

A regional database that will lock down the IP to a state or province accurately is a better basis to plan from, if you are thinking of building a geo-application from the ground up imho... much more reliable.



side note: If you want to try to block free email account usage for site submitters... MaxMind sell a database of identified free email providers too.. think it's about 15 bucks plus $3/mth for updates.

and this is just too cool to describe.. free creditcard fraud checker.. that's worth checking out if only to see the scope of what you can do with a database of IP numbers and a little thought |thumb
http://www.maxmind.com/app/ccv

[Barron]

Opti, maybe we should get together on this.

I may need to find another source for the database. Maxmind refuses to give me a phone number. I'm finding it hard to do business with someone that wont give me their name or phone number. But, if there are the only source, I may have to.

Any suggestions on another provider?

[mikeyddddd]

I've looked at Maxmind who has affiliate and reseller programs and IP2Location who has an affiliate program: http://www.SellShareware.com/ProgramInfo.asp?AfID=23108&PrID=59152 ).

I've looked at ARIN. But, when I did the customer query at ARIN all I got was the latitude and longitude in the database, not the city and state info that shows in their tutorial. So, I probably had something screwed up.

The AFF are fairly accurate. Depending on the IP I get when I connect it will be within 50 miles.

I just think that showing your town is a proper level of personalization to grab a surfer's attention. Showing a nearby major intersection may be so close as to be creepy.

Geo-targeting is definitely worth spending some time researching and testing.

[Wenchy]

Hey mikey :D

Well, ummm... I checked it out and... yeah, it got the country right LOL

Guess my router's mask is doing what it's supposed to, huh? |devil|

Editted because I just realized I'm still logged into a secure VPN for my day job. I'll have to try this later after I log out. DOH!

[Opti]

Opti, maybe we should get together on this.

I may need to find another source for the database. Maxmind refuses to give me a phone number. I'm finding it hard to do business with someone that wont give me their name or phone number. But, if there are the only source, I may have to.

Any suggestions on another provider?

I'm supposed to have written an article for Drav's blog project on this subject.. and I've actually been trying to hack together some simple scripts webmaster's can cut-n-paste for limited geo-targetting functionality.. so we probably can help each other. ;-)

hook up on icq?

[dareutwo]

I run across it reviewing... they suck for MN.
I guess if you're in NY or wherever, you don't care about MN. That's fine.
Someday, we just may decide to keep all your damn food.. LOL

Seriously, there are some major flaws for MN as it is.

[Barron]

Opti,

yeah, icq is fine, it still works. Skype crapped out on me when I installed the upgrade. You sleep different hours than I do, contact me when you have a few minutes.