How accurate is an IP LOOKUP? Location? Masking?

johnn said:

Since IP information is provided by ISP/NSP:
- Country 90% +
- County and City are not really accurate due to
1. Outdate IP database
2. Users may use Proxy Server to hide location

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Amar D said:

IP's are located where the datacenter is, also to a company with ASN.
The location will never be displayed directly at your house.

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tonyk2000 said:

maxmind .com and ip2location .com are the most trusted sources imo. Used by various websites where GEO determination is required. Also, whois works for both IPs and domains

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DomainBarracksRob said:

So over time I've noticed when I get an Offer with an IP Address

If I look it up on different IP Finders

Sometimes They will return different Locations?

Other times, it seems it returns the users "Internet Provider/cable comapny" location and not the "users" location

Can an IP LOCATION be off by several States(USA) away?

anyone with advice on how to truly dissect IP LOCATION info would be a great help

I assume also you Could MASK/Reroute an IP and give a fake one??

Thank You.

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jmcc said:

There are three ways of checking IPs. The first is uses the list of IP ranges that are broken down by country. This list is published daily. The best resolution of IPs (Class C or /24) in that list is 255 IP addresses. Some hosters allocate smaller (less than 255) numbers of IP addresses to their customers so a customer with a single IP address allocated to country B will still be shown as being in hoster's country.

The next version looks up the IP address from the regional IP registries like ARIN (www.arin.net), LACNIC (www.lacnic.net) or RIPE (www.ripe.net) or APNIC (www.apnic.net) or AFNIC (www.afrinic.net). This kind of lookup may give a physical address for the owner of the IP address range which is generally an ISP.

The most effective lookups are where the lookup site has effectively mapped the ISP networks and can give some regional location based on the ISP connection. But that's not always precise as some ISPs can cover large geographical areas.

If the IP address is included in the e-mail headers, it may well be just the IP addresses of the sending and receiving mailservers. Sometimes, there will be the IP address of the sender. That IP can be obscured or someone could use a privacy service or TOR to connect to a web interface to send the e-mail. IP addresses are more an indication of possible location than exact location.

Regards...jmcc

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