Practical technical support

Why is my IP location wrong?

An IP lookup can identify your network provider correctly and still place you in the wrong town.

IP location is a database estimate

A public IP is an internet routing address. It is not a GPS reading or a street address. Location databases estimate where a connection belongs using information about networks and address ranges.

A provider’s network can cover a large area

A connection may appear to be near a provider’s network equipment or the location recorded for an address block. Mobile networks, shared addresses, VPNs and proxies can make the result even less representative of where the person actually is.

Why the ISP can be right when the city is wrong

Network-registration records identify which organisation operates a network. That is a different question from where an individual customer is sitting. Even the organisation name may identify an upstream provider or VPN operator rather than the company on your broadband bill.

What this checker shows

We label the location as an estimate and the provider as “Network / ISP”. Check your connection details to see what is available. We do not silently replace an uncertain location with a guess or request your device’s GPS position.

When location matters

If another service blocks access or selects the wrong region, contact its support team. Different services may use different location databases. A wrong city in an IP lookup does not, on its own, prove a security problem.