GeoLocation – Explained

Geolocation refers to the method of identifying the actual Geographical location of a Computer on the internet or a visitor on your site or even the a mobile device. With reference to Hosting Clusters, we mostly trace the geographical location of the website visitors. There can be various procedures used to track down the geographical location of the visitors some of which are:
Internet Protocol Address (IP Address) Lookup:
This is the most common procedure we use on our setups. The visitors are traced on the basis of the whois lookups done to their current IP address. These lookups are automated, real-time and are implemented using special server side modules or even third party lookup services. These lookups can provide the most accurate locations of the visitors as these IP whois databases can always have updates.
Media Access Control Address (MAC Address):
Media Access Control or MAC addresses is an Unique Identifier assigned to most network adapters or Ethernet Cards by their Manufacturer. It contains a combination of the manufacturer's unique Identification number and some other codes to generate an unique MAC address for the physical device. The location of this device can be traced based on the Sales data for the manufacturer or some other similar methods.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID):
Radio Frequency Identification or RFID uses Radio waves to transmit data with the help of devices like Transponders. RFID does not have much applications on internet related geolocation but it has wide uses in corporate and enterprise supply chain management systems for inventory tracking and other applications.
Global Positioning System (GPS):
Global Positioning System or GPS uses different Artificial Satellites to interpret the microwave signals obtained from certain GPS enabled mobile devices to calculate the exact geographical location of the device. The device receives this interpreted data which it can use to locate itself and obtain navigation instructions for a particular destination from its current location.
The IP whois lookup method is the most commonly used method for clusters. We will study the exact implementation of this technique in the actual case studies we will be releasing soon.