GeoBytes IP Address Locator
This is a very cool location tool that provides not only the city and country for an IP address but also a map for US locations. To analyze the log files for this website, I currently use DNSStuff.com.
An IP address fed to both services some times leads to interesting results: someone in NY state using a Philadelphia service provider, for example. I can’t tell the accuracy of GeoBytes but it is 100% accurate for my IP address. At the least, it’s a fun tool: apparently someone from Ankara, Turkey found this site through Google the other day looking for washing machines. Another person in Amritsar, India also using Google found info here on dns host files.
UPDATE: I’m testing two software tools that retrieve address location, IP Locator and SmartWhois 4.0. Both cost under $50 USD and both process your website log files to extract your unique IP addresses, then query Whois to extract country, state, and company information. SmartWhois integrates with Outlook and archives results over time. So far, I’m happy with both tools: they provide lots of useful data easily.
Quick results from testing a 4600 line log file with 500 unique IP addresses: IP Locator had to be run 3-4 times to process all addresses and ended up with 16 addresses unable to identify. SmartWhois appeared to identify all IP addresses but it took six hours to get through 3600 lines of log files before I killed the process.
It also appears services like GeoBytes use both the generic whois files and what must be an augmented file with locations within certain universes, for example, big internet providers like Optimum Online, Road Runner, and Comcast. This probably explains the apparent greater precision of GeoBytes in some cases.
Most odd result of testing so far: SmartWhois showed that someone visited this site from the Imperial Household in Japan, the Emporer perhaps?
URLs:
http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm
http://www.dnsstuff.com
http://www.searchutilities.com/ipl/ (IP Locator)
http://www.tamos.com/download/main/ (SmartWhois)
Roy
isnt there any way of finding the exact address just by ip address
December 6, 2003 at 9:40 am
Log in to Reply
Tim
Short answer: not to my knowledge. There are at least two things to identify, the computer the visitor uses (which is near impossible) and the nearest gateway computer at the ISP they use (which is what GeoBytes appears to use).
I find that DNSStuff.com helps a little with business visitors because sometimes you can drill down to their ISP and their company (if they’ve been assigned IP blocks). I recommend DNSStuff.com because they also include a range of tools you can use to identify website owners and visitors (for chasing down spam, for example). I also find that they often come up with sources when GeoBytes can’t resolve a location.
Tracking by IP is an inexact science. If the visitor is from AOL, for example, all bets are off. GeoBytes happens to nail my location but totally misses on a couple clients of mine…
December 6, 2003 at 9:54 am
Log in to Reply