Finding the County of visitors

[JamesFarrell]

Hi,

I need to create reports on which county visitors to a web page are in.

How would one do that in a hypothetical situation?

 

[paul]

The main way of identifying users location is IP address, sadly these are not accurately defined (locationwise) in Ireland by Irish ISPs.

 

[mneylon]

Unfortunately some people seem to think you can *sigh*

 

[JamesFarrell]

Oh dear

Hmm.

A property website in Irelnad offers reports that shows from which counties visitors are.

Are they inaccurate then?

 

[Briask]

I typically show up as New Ross, but last time I looked outside I was still in Dublin city

 

[mneylon]

Hmm.

A property website in Irelnad offers reports that shows from which counties visitors are.

Are they inaccurate then?

Totally

If you take Eircom, for example, your IP address is reported as the main exchange. In the case of Carlow, for example, the main exchange is miles away and its name is NOT Carlow

County / town / city stats in Ireland are practically impossible to get. It's a different story in the US

 

[Forbairt]

If you go through a corporate firewall .. it'll also tend to put you in the location of that firewall .. so on a few sites things show up coming from the US they they are probably originating in ireland

 

[Drang3d]

You could try using google trends for sites but again, it depends on the end persons internet setup, i.e if they're going through a proxy server etc.

 

[n3tFl0w]

I'm going to chime in here with the rest and tell you that its impossible. I sometimes show up as Limerick various geo-IP websites, but I was in Naas a the time. And having used to work for Eircom, I knew why. (As BB support... The amount of calls we got where users would ask us to edit their location correctly was hilarious... Pretty sure they were all men, and wanted those ads that tell you that you can meet girls in "rathcoole" to be actually where they lived) However, in the two years since I left Eircom I have completely forgotten the reason...

As for the property site that is doing it... they are making an assumption I bet. If an IP searches for houses in Cork, they're going to say that that IP is in Cork. Its dirty but I'd say its about 80% accurate.

 

[JamesFarrell]

Still want to try

ok, so if I was going to badly guess users locations, I would need a database of ip address locations is that right?

Can anyone point me toward a php script which could do the business or is a there a 3rd party vendor that offer such and such as a service?

EDIT: I have since come across this - GEO IP Database community Contributions

Any further suggestions would be welcomed

 

[Forbairt]

maxmind springs to ... mind for some reason

MaxMind - GeoLite Country | Open Source IP Address to Country Database

 

[Tom]

The county/city level information obtained from an IP database isn't going to help you much because again it's highly inaccurate. I think the only way is to rely mostly on users selecting or typing location information directly into your website and make an assumption based on it.

A simple selection box at the top of your website might work. Check if the IP is Irish and then output a Select your County: [Drop down box] - A lot of people would probably use it, especially if it helped focus the website for their location.

 

[JamesFarrell]

Good thinking

Good idea.
In fact you made me realise that the website I'm thinking of, is proabably pulling user info from the registered county upon registration....duh

 

[Forbairt]

Good idea.

Was just about to say that ...

pre populate the drop down based on where you think it is ... if its wrong so be it ... they can easily change it.

 

[nevf]

it's an ironic story to be honest.

i am from westport in real life.
on dial-up, i am from castlebar.
on broadband, i am from either galway or limerick
...somtimes even st. stephens green in dublin.

the only accurate way of knowing where your visitors are from is to have them login before they can see your site, and when they register, to have them tick what county they are in.

going by IP is a total joke in ireland, with an accuracy rate of about 20-30% i would imagine, and that is for people who are in the same county as the exchange.