What Is IP Address Geolocation and How to Change It?

IP geolocation is the mapping of an IP address to the geographic location of the internet from the connected device. By geographically mapping the IP address, it provides you with location information such as the country, state, city, zip code, latitude/longitude, ISP, area code, and other information.

Various systems use geolocation databases for IP addresses. The reasons for this are numerous, but it is mainly used for deducting the user’s location so that the system could give more personalized offers (products, services, etc.).

In this case, we will deduct the geolocation for the following IP address: 185.141.165.74.
The easiest way to do it is to use free online tools like iplocation.net (google ip geolocation tools).

Paste the IP address in the IP Location Finder text box and press the IP Lookup button. In this case, the result you get is this:

In the picture above, we can see that the tool found the IP record on three databases: IP2Location, ipinfo.io, and DB-IP. The text in the brackets denotes where the information was taken from and when it was last updated (e.g., IP2location (Product: DB6, etc.) means that the geolocation record for the IP was taken from DB6 database).

Sometimes you might see that geolocation data varies from database to database. One system might deduct that your IP address is from Germany, other states that it is from France. How is that possible?

There are many reasons why this might happen, yet it is basically due to the difference in database records.

If you find your geolocation wrong and you would like to change it, you need to request a correction for a record. The means of doing this varies depending on the database, for example, DB-IP handles the requests via support email, where you should state the IP (with the subnet) and the location information (City, State, Country, Postal Code). Other databases like MaxMind use data correction web forms so that all requests had the same standard and could be handled by API.

So to change the records, you need to find the way the database handles the requests.

You might be contacted by some person, who supervises the database system, asking you to provide traceroutes (to at least one IP of the subnet range). To do that using Windows OS, press Start, type cmd, hit Enter then type:

and type the IP you would like to trace instead of your_ip.
For our example IP: 185.141.165.74 the result looks like this:

Take notice that the traceroute will be different if it is done from other locations that are due to the fact that the utility checks the connection from one PoP to the other, mapping the route. The first column denotes the number of the Hop, second, third, and fourth denotes the latency between hops (checked three times), and the last one denotes the address of the Hop. Take notice that latency between some PoPs is marked like * – that is because, for security purposes (DDoS), some PoPs are configured not to handle ICMP requests. Find more information about tracert here.

So, if you are asked for a traceroute, copy the result from cmd to a text document and send it to them, in most cases, that is enough.

You have requested for data correction, yet you still see the same results? Some databases refresh their records once a month, others – once in a week. Depending on the database, it may not have updated your records yet.

You can see that utilities see your IP address correctly, but some sites (system) still states that you are from the wrong location? Most probably, a system like that uses the database, which holds a false record. In this case, you would have to find out what database it is and then ask its support for correction.

Alternatively, you can talk with the Heficed team to discuss the issues you are facing, and we are ready to help. Want to try Heficed services? Get started with the IP Address Market, where you will find all RIRs and many geolocations in one place at an affordable price! You can run bare-metal and virtual servers with the IPs ordered in IP Address Market.