myipcheck.netYour IP address carries no coordinates. A site takes the address, looks it up in a database, and gets back the place where that block of addresses was last seen in use. No GPS, no permission.
Where the location comes from
Companies such as MaxMind, IP2Location, IPinfo and DB-IP build these databases and sell them to websites. They combine registry records, network measurements, feeds that providers publish about their own addresses, and corrections from users. Everyone in the same block of addresses gets the same answer.
The pin on the map is the middle of an area, not your house. MaxMind itself says its data is never precise enough to locate a household. It puts its own accuracy at over 99% for the country and about two in three for US cities, within 50 km.
Why it’s wrong for you
- Mobile data. Your traffic leaves through the carrier’s gateway, which can be hundreds of kilometres away.
- VPN, proxy, work network. The site sees where the tunnel ends, not where you are.
- Moved addresses. Providers move blocks between regions, and the databases catch up later.
- Old copies. A site using an outdated or free database may show a location the vendor fixed months ago.
- Only the country is known. Some databases still return a point in the middle of the country. A farm in Kansas was visited by police for years because it sat on the default point for the whole United States.
The first two aren’t errors: the database is right about the address, it just isn’t where you are. That’s why our card shows a city, a region or only the country, depending on how sure the answer is.
Getting it fixed
If you are on a home line and the city is far off, send a correction. Each company keeps its own data, so each one needs its own request:
- MaxMind correction form
- IPinfo corrections
- IP2Location contact page
- Google’s IP location form (for Google’s own services)
If you run the network, publish a geofeed (RFC 8805) and link it from your registry record. One file then reaches every vendor that reads them.
You can also tell us with Wrong location? on the address card.