Forum Discussion
Solved
Public IP Address
My public IP address situates me in Courtenay but I live in Vancouver. Is it normal for an IP address to be so wrong?
Yes. It's not unusual. Especially if you've just gotten a new IP address. It's not uncommon to see blocks of IP addresses, especially IPv4, that are bought, sold and moved between locations. Geolocation databases are often a month if not several months out of date. That means if your new IP was previously in use in another city, province or country, those databases can take a lot of time to update. The databases with paying customers update sooner than the free databases used by most sites / companies.
The previous new IP I received was last in use in Halifax and I'm in Alberta. Most of the geolocation databases kept coming up with Halifax for probably about 5-6 months before they started updating. My current IP that I have now shows up as a few different cities depending on the database used. Most are showing the correct city in Alberta but a few are showing incorrect cities including Toronto (x3) and Vancouver (x2).
2 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- Nighthawk
Community Power User
Yes. It's not unusual. Especially if you've just gotten a new IP address. It's not uncommon to see blocks of IP addresses, especially IPv4, that are bought, sold and moved between locations. Geolocation databases are often a month if not several months out of date. That means if your new IP was previously in use in another city, province or country, those databases can take a lot of time to update. The databases with paying customers update sooner than the free databases used by most sites / companies.
The previous new IP I received was last in use in Halifax and I'm in Alberta. Most of the geolocation databases kept coming up with Halifax for probably about 5-6 months before they started updating. My current IP that I have now shows up as a few different cities depending on the database used. Most are showing the correct city in Alberta but a few are showing incorrect cities including Toronto (x3) and Vancouver (x2).
Hey, thanks very much for your detailed explanation. It really puts the IP issue in perspective.
