How can I find a user's location based on their IP address? (free and not free services)

Question

If you need to locate a user based on their IP address, what services are available?

p.s. I understand that some users use proxies etc, that mean the result is not 100% accurate. That's ok.

Answer 1

Most geolocation services allow you to download a database full of IP Address to city or country maps. Some also provide web service apis for free (limited number of requests) or a paid subscription.

MaxMind has one such service that you can use which is free to determine the user's location. Their minFraud service allows 500 free queries per day.

A sample for their web service in ASP

Dim objHttp, strQuery
strQuery = "http://geoip1.maxmind.com/a?l=" & license_key & _
    "&i=" & ipaddress
set objHttp = Server.CreateObject("Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP")
objHttp.open "GET", strQuery, false
objHttp.send
Response.Write objHttp.ResponseText
Set objHttp = Nothing

They also offer APIs for determing credit card fraud probability based on location, card number, etc, in their paid version.

Another service is ip2location. ^{John Millikin}

Also, IPLigence offers 50 free queries a day.

For .NET Coders, there is the IPAdressExtensions module (open source, free and no web service required) ^purekrome

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More info about geolocation is available on wikipedia.

Answer 2

It's also worth noting that MaxMind allow you to download their geolocation database as a CSV file:

• http://www.maxmind.com/app/geolitecity

Answer 3

I have used hostip.info to grab client location informaion when forms are submitted on some of my aspx pages. Here is a blog entry I wrote on it a while back www.fencerowproductions.com

Answer 4

For a paid product, you could look at CountryHawk from cyScape.

I can't vouch for this product personally, but we use their BrowserHawk product for browser and connection speed detection (eg to optimise video streaming) and haven't had any problems with it.

Answer 5

Here's another free service: http://www.webservicex.net/WCF/ServiceDetails.aspx?SID=46

WebserviceX.NET provide quite a few different free web services.

Answer 6

Geolocation with ClientLocation generally works and you get it free when you use Google's JSAPI.

• Demo site

Answer 7

Easy -> I made a .NET extension method a while back. It's all wrapped up in a single DLL that u can use and reference. it doesn't require ANY WEB SERVICE or 3rd party external API call.

it's also free.

it's also open source. blah blah blah.

Enjoy!

It's called IPAddressExtensions and it's on Codeplex.

Answer 8

this site uses maxminds free product - its a decent showcase - http://www.ipaddress1.com/

Answer 9

I have the Internet connection in my office . I want to check my broadband speed .I found the Details Like uploading,Downloading details on the websiten named as link text. All the information very fast..Free of cost..

Answer 10

I recommend userlocation.com. It's easy to use and affordable and it's quite accurate.

Answer 11

Easy intro to using MaxMinds downloadable database in PHP Geolocation

Answer 12

If you talking about the occasional check, then you can just use the IP2Location demo page.

Answer 13

There was a brilliant solution using those adult ads ie. "women in YOUR_TOWN would like to 'meet' you tonight"

Somebody worked out a way to extract the location string without loading the ad.
I can't find the code, searching google for adult ads isn't terribly effective, but somebody here might remember it.