Interesting but Very Confusing Discovery

[chuckinsocal]

Here it is:

StatCounter says that a visitor came from New York. But, when I trace the IP through http://www.utrace.de the map shows me the traffic actually came from a server in my hometown Carlsbad, CA which actually make more sense since all my photos are local to my community. Also, the visitor apparently typed the URL directly including a vanity URL that is only known to people who have my business card.

I tracked several other IP adresses and found the same thing in several cases where StatCounter says the traffic came from the East Coast but utrace.de shows the server is in my local area in Carlsbad CA.

The big question: Why such a huge difference?

Thanks.

Chuck Cannova

[Car Guy]

The IP geo data that Statcounter uses is supplied by the ISP's to the respective data source. Each data source can gather their data from any number of places and chose to update or not, at any time.

The particular ISP in your region must provide reasonably accurate location, but the location is that of the ISP's data center, not the visitor's location.

You will find all most as many different results as sources when comparing geo data. One may seem very accurate for one visitor, but will place another in another city, or even state. Some ISP's buy bandwidth from other sources and that can put the visitor's location in another city or even country.

[chuckinsocal]

Thanks CarGuy. I think I understand what you are saying. But why is it that StatCounter uses the geo info that the ISP provides while http://www.utrace.de/ seems to locate the original local server that my visitor is accessing?

It's a bit disappointing because when I see a visitor with lots of page views and no referring link I want to know if the visitor is local so I get an idea if my local marketing is working. Apparently StatCounter isn't suited to that.

I'm not complaining or blaming, or anything like that. I'm just trying to understand what is really going on so I can figure out how to deal with it.

Thanks again.

Chuck Cannova

[Car Guy]

Unfortunately their is no one source of accurate geo information.

Each supplier relies on the data given them by the ISP's

The data that the ISP's give changes often and is not accurate at any time.

Their are several reasons;
.
The location is the data center, not the visitor's location. So it seldom is truly accurate.

The location is not always accurate as many ISP's "buy" bandwidth from other ISP's. The result can be nearly any location you could imagine. For example, in Canada many of our ISP's buy bandwidth from US companies. So as a result several of the registered visitors to my Canadian site are shown as being in California, New York, etc, when I know that they are in Canada.

Things are constantly changing as ISP's reorganize and shuffle things around. So what was "accurate" last week is not valid today.

Visitors may be using a proxy. This means that they could be anywhere in the world.

ISP's make mistakes!

What you find "accurate" with one ISP, would not be "accurate" with another. and vise versa. What I'm saying, is if Statcounter used a data source that you were satisfied was accurate, my visitors could be off. Their is no finite source of geo data available. Statcounter uses sources that are as accurate as can be expected.

A few years ago my ISP placed me in another province, 1000 KMs from where I am. Nearly all data sources agreed with that even though it was wrong. A couple placed me in another town, much closer but still about 20 KMs from where I live. A few months later I suddenly moved about 500 KMs North of were I live. Then in the last several months I am now "home"

Maybe many of your regular visitors use the same ISP and for that region your ISP gives fairly a accurate location.

[chuckinsocal]

OK ... as I understand it, and I may be totally wrong as I know just enough about this stuff to qualify as being stupid, an IP address identifies a specific server or router that sits in a specific location.

When I access the internet, the requests from my computer go to a server or router in my local area, in my case Time Warner Cable in Carlsbad CA, which has it's own IP Address. From there it is routed around the country or world until my request reaches the server that contains the information I'm looking for.

Shouldn't the system be able to identify the location of that original Time Warner server in my city?

But, now I'm thinking of the router in my own home that I can identify anyway I want to. So I could identify it as being in Deluth MN and anyone accessing my router would think I'm in MN when I'm really in CA. Is that at least part of what you are saying?

It's all very confusing.

Thanks again.

Chuck Cannova

[Car Guy]

It has nothing to do with your router at home.

If your ISP is Time Warner, then where ever Time Warner's data center is for your connection, THAT is were you are. It might be down the street or across town.

When you connect to the internet you access it through that data center. When you visit a site the IP that you are assigned by your ISP identifies you.

If your ISP is asked for the location for geo data it provides the data center's location as YOUR location.

Some ISP's have many data centers across the country. AOL has one, Virgina. So who ever is an AOL customer, there location is Virginia regardless of where they really are.