Differences Between Commercial And Free Ip Geolocation Databses

By Author: Camimi Morales
Total Articles: 18
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As it’s name implies, IP Geolocation Database is a database that offers geolocation tracking information. It identifies an individual’s geographical location via IP address. Do you know the difference between commercial and free databases?

In this section, we would like to share more about the differences between the two editions. Alternatively, you can also quickly view the differences in table form in the below link:

Compare differences: https://lite.ip2location.com/edition-comparison#123articleonline

Commercial vs. Free – Pricing & licensing for IP Geolocation Databases
The free databases are offered under the Open-Source license. It is free even for commercial users. However, usage of the free database requires attribution in websites and apps.

On the other hand, the commercial databases are priced from $49. With the paid databases, users do not have to provide any attribution. In addition, the Commercial databases come with licensing in the form of Standard, Site, and Redistribution.

Licensing info: https://www.ip2location.com/licensing#123articleonline

Accuracy ...
... differential between the Commercial and Free IP Geolocation Databases
Free IP geolocation data only covers Class C IP addresses. Therefore, there are fewer records in the free database with >1 million rows. As a result, the data returned will only show the majority location whenever Class C contains multiple locations. The level of accuracy at the country level is about 98% while the city level accuracy is about 60%.

By comparison, the commercial database comes with >4 million rows. The paid database includes every geolocation inside a Class C. This brings the country-level accuracy to about 99.5%. It increased the city level accuracy to about 80% vs. the LITE data.

Difference between Commercial and Free database
Free IP geolocation databases are only available for DB1, DB3, DB5, DB9 and DB11. Its data fields are limited to information about country, region, city, latitude, longitude, ZIP code and time zone.

Meanwhile, the commercial databases range from DB1 to DB25. In the paid databases, there are advanced data available such as ISP, weather station, mobile carrier info, usage type, and IAB category.

Benefits of using the IP Geolocation Database Commercial
The commercial databases support multiple locations within a Class C IP address range. Therefore, this translates into increased accuracy at the city level, enabling many industries to do their jobs better.

The cyber security industry provides better filtering and blocking of network traffic due to the more granular geolocation data. False-positive is a false alarm in cyber security. It drains time and resources. Ideally, you need accurate geolocation to reduce false positives.

Businesses nowadays implement location tracking to improve their business reach. For example, marketing professionals use geo-targeting to present ads, relevant content and promotions to visitors from relevant regions. Showing localized ads that are of interest to people from specific regions can boost sales conversion.

An ISP (Internet Service Provider) is an organization that provides Internet access to organizations and home users. Many ISP also offers other related services such as routing Internet traffic, resolving domain names and maintaining the network infrastructure. According to studies, malware signals are usually present before new malicious software was found. ISP has the ability to trace internet traffics and usage patterns. It is useful to identify suspicious activity and block potential malicious users.

Half of the web users nowadays are intelligent agents (internet bots). Online services use bots to automate tasks for data collection from the internet. However, bad bots scrape data from sites without permission. Understanding the usage type helps to differentiate real users from proxies and bots. In brief, these data fields are useful in fraud prevention for online businesses.

Conclusion
To conclude, the free IP geolocation database is the way to go if attribution and reduced accuracy are not a concern. When there is a need for higher accuracy or more advanced data fields, companies can consider commercial databases. Ultimately, it all depends on the individual or organizational preferences and requirements.