How much precision can IP address geolocation reach?

IP geolocation precision refers to the description of the precision level of positioning results on the premise of successful positioning. There are six levels: continent, country, province, city, district and street.

The precision of IP address geolocation is generally city level, up to street level. For example, if the positioning result of an IP is No. 88, Zhongguancun West Street, Haidian District, Beijing, the precision of this IP is street level; if the positioning result of this IP only shows Beijing, then the precision of this IP is city level.

Generally speaking, if the positioning precision of an IP address is at country level, the accuracy of the IP positioning can reach 99.9%. If the positioning precision is at city level, the positioning accuracy is only about 70%.

Ordinary netizens use a dynamic IP address to access the Internet, and their positioning precision can only reach the city level, so it is impossible to determine the specific location. If a further detailed address is required, it must be relevant government agencies go to check the Internet service provider (ISP) under legal regulations. Because all user information, including addresses, is registered with the ISP, and the Internet access records (including the assigned IP) can also be checked by the operator. This information is not published online and cannot be obtained by ordinary people, so the precision of IP geolocation lookup is not high enough and users also don’t worry about disclosing privacy.

From a technical point of view, it is not easy to achieve ultra-high-precision IP address geolocation. Because the IP address geolocation technology is based on a combination of multiple approaches. Technicians use an overall model that combines data mining and network measurement to first divide IP address application scenarios, then build the IP address location technology architecture and use dynamic IP address multi-region location algorithms to solve the problem of low data utilization of benchmark to form street-level IP geolocation, which is a very complicated process, not to mention precisely to the specific room number.

Of course, if you indeed want to improve the precision and accuracy of IP geolocation, you can target IP with benchmarks (such as enterprises and residences) in different application scenarios and complete highly accurate IP address geolocation by using dynamic density clustering algorithms. However, this method is much of difficulties, individuals and general companies are hard to realize it.

Base station positioning and GPS positioning can achieve higher accuracy and precision, but they are no longer in the category of IP address positioning, so there is not much to talk about here.