Question 1

How accurate is IP geolocation?

Accepted Answer

IP geolocation accuracy varies by detail level: country-level accuracy is typically 95–99% for most IPs; city-level accuracy drops to 50–80% and the 'city' may be the nearest large city rather than the actual city; coordinates are estimates (usually the centre of a city or region, not an exact address). Accuracy is lower for: mobile IPs (carrier routing can place them hundreds of miles away), corporate IPs (often point to headquarters or data centre), VPN/proxy IPs (show the VPN server location, not your real location), and satellite internet (Starlink IPs frequently show incorrect countries). IP geolocation should never be used for precise location tracking.

Question 2

What is an ASN (Autonomous System Number)?

Accepted Answer

An Autonomous System Number (ASN) is a unique identifier assigned to a network on the internet. Every ISP, hosting provider, CDN and large corporation that manages a block of IP addresses has an ASN. Examples: AS15169 = Google LLC, AS32934 = Meta Platforms, AS16509 = Amazon Web Services (AWS), AS14618 = Amazon.com Inc., AS13335 = Cloudflare Inc. ASNs are used for routing (BGP protocol), spam filtering (ASN reputation) and abuse tracking. The geolocation tool shows both the numeric ASN and the organisation name.

Question 3

What is the difference between my public IP and my private IP?

Accepted Answer

Your public IP is the address the internet sees — assigned by your ISP, visible to websites and services. Your private IP is your address on your local network (home router, office network) — typically 192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x or 172.16–31.x.x. Private IP addresses are not routable on the internet and are invisible outside your local network. A home router uses NAT (Network Address Translation) to map many private IPs to one public IP. When you look up 'my IP', you see your public IP. The IP geolocation tool looks up your public IP automatically.

Question 4

Can I look up someone else's IP address?

Accepted Answer

You can look up any public IP address — the data is publicly available and used legitimately for network troubleshooting, fraud detection and spam filtering. What you will see: the ISP or hosting provider, a rough city/region, country and ASN. What you will NOT see: the person's home address, name, or precise location — this data is not included in public geolocation databases. Using IP lookup for stalking, harassment or unauthorised surveillance is illegal in most jurisdictions. Legitimate uses include: identifying where traffic is coming from in server logs, investigating spam sources and debugging network issues.

IP Geolocation

Data returned for each IP lookup

Country

City & region

ISP / Carrier

Coordinates

Timezone

ASN

Frequently asked questions

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