How accurate is IP Geolocation?

IP geolocation is the process of determining the location of a user via their IP address.

When a user connects to a website, their IP address is shared with the website.

The website looks up the IP address in a directory that returns a location. The most popular directory is the Maxmind GeoLite database.

Maxmind builds this database using information from internet service providers.

IP geolocation tends to work well at a country level. Typically, there can be exceptions when an internet connection looks like it comes from one place, but is in fact from another (for example, a US military base in another country may show up as ‘USA’), however this accounts for less than 1% of the results.

When it comes to determining the city, results are more varied, and depend on the location, quality of the data, and internet service provider set ups.

As a general rule of thumb, relying on country level geolocation is appropriate, whereas city level geolocation is useful, but should not be relied upon.

Linkly allows you to redirect users based on their location.

Linkly provides a list of free geoip databases here.

How Accurate is IP Geolocation?

IP geolocation is the process of estimating a user’s physical location from their IP address.

When someone connects to a website, their IP address is transmitted. The website (or service it uses) queries a geolocation database to map that IP to a location. One of the most widely used databases is MaxMind’s GeoLite2, which is built using information from internet service providers and other sources.

• Country level: Generally reliable, with success rates above 95–99%. Errors can occur in special cases, such as VPN usage, proxy servers, or traffic from overseas military bases, but these are rare.
• Region / city level: Accuracy is much lower and varies by country, ISP, and data quality. In large cities, results may be within a few kilometers, but in rural areas or where IPs are pooled, the estimated location can be hundreds of kilometers off.
• Exact address level: Not possible. IP geolocation cannot pinpoint a street address or an individual user.

• Appropriate use cases: Country-level redirection, compliance with regional rules, tailoring language/currency, high-level analytics.
• Caution advised: City-level personalization, fraud detection, or scenarios where precise accuracy is required.

As a rule of thumb:

• Trust country-level geolocation for reliable results.
• Use city-level geolocation only as a helpful signal, not a guaranteed fact.

Linkly supports IP-based redirects, allowing you to send users to different destinations depending on their country.

If you want to experiment with different providers, see our guide to free GeoIP databases.