A website opens in the wrong language, a shop shows prices in another currency, and the weather is for a town a hundred kilometres away. That is IP geolocation: the website guesses where you are from your address. Here is how it works, why it gets things wrong and how to make a website see the country you need.
How a website works out your location
A website doesn't have your exact address. It takes your IP and looks it up in a geolocation database — a big table matching address ranges to a country, region, city and provider. The best-known databases are MaxMind, IP2Location and DB-IP. They are built from address registry data, information from providers and other sources.
Besides the IP, websites may use other clues: your browser's language and time zone, your account settings and, on a phone, GPS if you have allowed location access.
Why geolocation gets it wrong
- The city is approximate. Databases almost always know the country, but the city comes with a margin of error — often it is where the provider's equipment is.
- The provider routes traffic through another city. Mobile carriers especially: you are in one city but go online through a hub in another.
- Addresses change hands. Providers sell and reallocate address blocks, and the databases don't update straight away.
- New IPv6 ranges are sometimes recorded less accurately than long-known IPv4 ones.
- You are using a VPN or proxy. The website then locates the server, not you.
- Different websites, different databases. That is why one service may say Warsaw and another Kraków.
How to check where you "appear" to be
Open several IP-check services — whatismyipaddress.com, ipapi.co and ip.sb, for example — and compare what they show. If they all name the same country, websites will most likely see it too. Differences in the city are normal. More on checking your address in "How to Check Your IP Address".
How to make a website see the country you need
- Use a proxy in that country. The website will take the country from the proxy's IP — a way to see a site, its ads or search results the way users in another country do.
- Adjust your browser. The language and time zone should match the IP's country. Anti-detect browsers do this automatically from the proxy IP — more in "What Is an Antidetect Browser".
- Check your account settings. Many services, Google for example, take into account the region set in your account and your location history.
- Turn off location access in the browser for websites that don't need to know where you are.
If a website gets your real location wrong
- Choose the country or language manually on the website itself — most big services have such a setting.
- If a database is wrong, the major ones have correction forms — filled in by the address's owner, usually your provider. You can ask them to do it.
- Check that you haven't left a VPN or proxy on and forgotten about it.
FAQ
Can a website find my exact address from my IP?
No. IP geolocation shows the country and approximate city, not the street or the house. A website only learns your exact location if you allow access to your device's location yourself.
Why does a proxy from one country show another?
Databases sometimes disagree, especially about new addresses. Check on several services: if most of them show the country you need, all is well. More in "How to Test a Proxy".
How do I choose a proxy country?
Pick the country whose users the website should see you as, or a country close to the website if speed matters. The IPv6 proxy countries are in our configurator.