By Kelly Arellano // April 12, 2023

IP Geolocation APIs are a specific type of application programming interface that allow developers to access geographic data associated with a particular IP address. They can provide information such as the country, city, and region of the user's origin. This is useful for various purposes, including advertising targeting, fraud detection, website localization and personalization, content delivery networks (CDNs), geo-targeted search engines, analytics, location-based marketing campaigns, data protection compliance checks and more.

Some services also employ data sources like WHOIS records which contain ownership and registration information about certain Internet resources such as domain names or IP addresses. This type of source is often used when dealing with dedicated server hosting solutions where traditional geocoding methods may fail due to false positives caused by virtual private networks (VPNs), proxies or other shared resources that make it difficult to determine the exact physical location of an IP address.

The progression of geolocation technology has made it possible for us to locate things via the internet. Whether it is locating your lost pet with its GPS embedded collar or finding your favorite restaurant, geolocation has graduated to become an imperative technology for everyday living. Besides, the technology has evolved and is now used on a bigger scale by enterprises to identify and target consumers based on location. However, before we delve deep into the core aspects of this technology, let's break it down.

Geolocation is the identification or designation of the geographic location of an item, such as a mobile phone, radar source, or internet-connected computer. In that sense, IP Geolocation can be defined as the technique used to map a particular IP address to a geographic location from where the device is connecting to the internet. Through this technology, individuals or organizations can identify or estimate the real-world location of a device that you are using to connect to the Internet. This technique provides your device's location details such as the country, state city, latitude/longitude, zip code, and even the street.

IP geolocation has become an essential technology when it comes to mapping IP addresses with geographic locations (continent, country, state/province, and city, as well as additional information such as postal/ZIP code, time zone and area code, others). However, its accuracy is contingent upon the database being used by the service provider. Most vendors claim they provide 98 to 99% accuracy for the IP-to-country database. However, the IP2country database accuracy is considered to be about 95%. The accuracy of IP-to-City is estimated to be somewhere between 50% and 70%, while that of IP-to-Region is around 50% since there is no official source of IP2Region data.

The benefits of IP geolocation are far-reaching and are used by organizations from all sectors, including manufacturing, insurance, banking transportation, governments, and utilities, among others. By identifying their consumer's location, businesses craft more targeted and personalize adverts, as well as provide more tailored products and services. In partnership with cross-platform mobile applications, IP geolocation offers the basis for enhanced and personalized experiences. It also allows organizations to leverage location data, social media, and other platforms to provide context-enriched services.

In the banking sector, determining the user location is part and parcel of the authentication process that helps prevent money laundering, "phishing" attacks, and other security concerns. It also plays a pivotal role in fraud detection for online merchants, credit card providers, and online payment platforms.

Law enforcement agencies use IP geolocation services to track financial transactions done by corrupt government officials, drug dealers, and money launders. Government agencies also use the service to monitor online deals with terrorists associated groups or trading with banned nations.

Since there are plenty of ways in which users can use fake IP addresses, there is a bugging question of whether they can still be traced. The answer is yes. Even if you fake your IP address using additional services, they will be mapped to the location that is provided by the service you are using. What happens is that the tool you are using makes others think that you are accessing the internet using another IP, in another Country. However, with more search, the address can be flagged as fake.

Geolocation services boast access to vast databases that provide them with the necessary information they need to locate someone using IP addresses. However, their sources of data include:

These are large organizations that are mandated with the role of managing and controlling internet access in various regions. RIR is responsible for the assigning and distribution of IP addresses, as well as registration of domains. Due to the rapid growth of the internet and the fact that every computer needs an IP to connect to the internet, the demand for IP addresses has risen, forcing the RIR to have subsidiary registries in various regions. Since the Regional Internet Registries are the custodians of the IP addresses, they are the primary source of data for geolocation service providers.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may also be a source of data for databases that are used by IP geolocation service providers. Because ISPs have perfect knowledge of their IP addresses, they sometimes share information with other online companies. The companies might, in turn, use statistical formulas and other advanced analytical tools to analyze data collected by IPS when we go about our regular online activities. Using such data, service providers can fine-tune their search and get more precise locations.

In some cases, companies may take anonymous data that is linked to particular IP addresses and use the information to populate their databases. These include things like postal codes, a city, or any other information relating to your location that you provide when buying something online. They may also scour other data sources where your IP address had manifested before. For instance, when you log in to online weather sites and type your ZIP code or City, the data is tied to your IP since the request was made in real-time.

This is a more advanced and sophisticated technique where companies use trace routes, pings, and other methods to visit websites, read their information, and collect data that can help in the identification of IP addresses geographic locations. The complexity of this technique makes it time-consuming. It is hard to map routing infrastructure around the internet, considering that there are millions if not billions of addresses that are allocated, moved, or de-allocated every single day.

After reviewing over 27 IP Geolocation APIs, we found these 10 APIs to be the very best and worth mentioning:

Telize was previously a public API, but due to abuse the API was rebuilt with a paid plan on the Rapid API Hub.

This REST API is a service to get a visitor's IP address and query their location information. It returns JSON-encoded IP geolocation data, and supports both Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) and JSONP for a friendly user experience.

Learn how to use the API in JavaScript to Build a Location Intelligence App.

The IP geo location API gives detailed information about the IP location of your visitors. Data includes information about country, city, latitude and longitude, timezone, asn, currency, and some security data. The API service supports IPv4 and IPv6 IP addresses. Response formats in JSON and xml.

Supported languages:

The Referential API provides developers access to countries, states, cities, continents, dial, and zip codes in up to 20 languages. A collection of data APIs to support forms, signups, search, and lookup. The endpoints are optimized for speed and size, and the data is regularly maintained and comes from international standardization bodies, the United Nations, government surveys, and GIS datasets. No scraping of WikiPedia.

The API service offers fast and global APIs to:

The Zip Code API provides the following functions:

The Census Geocoder provides interactive & programmatic (REST) access to users interested in matching addresses to geographic locations and entities containing those addresses.

This is an API to get the longitude and latitude Information on the basis of an IP.

The IP Location API provides geographical info including continent, country, district, city, latitude and longitude, currency, phone-code, etc.

The Geocode address to location API converts any address to a lat/lon location - parse, validate, and format the address to store it in a database or show on a map.

The IP geolocation API allows developers to locate the IP addresses and IP data of their website visitors and users as well as those addresses contained in their network logs.

This API returns the real-time IP location of an IP address (country, region, city, zipcode, latitude and longitude) and the associated timezone in JSON or XML format.

All IP Geolocation APIs and their endpoints are available to consume in:

Learn how to get started with Rapid SDKs.

Which API do you think is the best IP geolocation software or API? Did we miss your favorite or do you have any use cases to share? Let us know in the comments below.

View the Best Geo IP APIs List

Filed Under: APIs Tagged With: geolocation, ip, ip geolocation, ip info, ip location