Re: Incorrect IP Geolocation

(Short version: This is probably Google's fault. More detail below)

On Wed, 09 Jul 2014 18:00:57 +0200, Ryan M <ryanm@aareas.com> wrote:

> Hi, for some reason our public IP address at our office is showing the  
> incorrect geolocation...

> The geolocation is correctly showing on Maxmind, ip2location, and  
> Neustar (ipintelligence), but not with W3C.  I have confirmed that using  
> whatismyipaddress.com.  As a result, our google searches are giving us  
> results based on this incorrect location.

> A lot of other websites are also giving us incorrect location results
> as well.  I am assuming all of these websites are using the W3C HTML5
> standard incorporating W3C’s geolocation API into their websites.

They probably are, but that doesn't mean W3C is the source of your  
problem...

> I have already contacted my ISP who confirmed all their records map our  
> geolocation correctly to Toronto, Ontario.

OK, that is usually important.

> They have already confirmed with the registrars, ARIN and ICANN that it
> shows correct with them as well. So why does W3C still map our IP address
> to the wrong location?  Does W3C keep an internal database of IP
> geolocations that needs to be updated?

No. Various organisations offer location lookup services. While these may  
be based on IP address, or use IP address, there are various other things  
they may take into account. A common one is to keep a database of wifi  
routers, on the (not very good) assumption that these don't move much.

> How can we get this updated?

If Google is getting it wrong, it seems reasonable to assume their  
location lookup service is doing something wrong - and it may be that  
others who get it wrong are relying on Google for that service (which in  
turn my rely on a 3rd party). I am afraid I don't know how you tell Google  
they made a mistake, but I am sure you can find that information somewhere.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - web standards - CTO Office, Yandex
chaals@yandex-team.ru         Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Wednesday, 9 July 2014 20:04:31 UTC