This location was defined by your internet address – what does it mean? When you search for a world-famous food chain shop, Google shows the addresses of the nearby shops. If you search for a city or street that is too common, Google understands where you are and picks the nearest locations in search results.
It might not seem to be a big deal, but how does Google do that? Your device has an address called IP address, the same as your house or street address. With this address, your geolocation can be easily tracked across the internet.
If you want to know more about your internet connection, Proxyway Proxy Checker can be a very handy tool. Check your location and other relevant information with the free online proxy checker. We will come back to this later.
This Location Was Defined by Your Internet Address!
What Is an IP Address?
When you see or get to know about – This location was defined by your internet address, you must know what this address is about. We, humans, need a name or identity to socialize. Other identities are also required for jobs and other purposes. Similarly, our devices connecting to the internet should also have some form of identity so that we can differentiate one device from another.
This identity is known as the IP address. IP means Internet Protocol. It is a compilation of regulations that control the format of data we send and receive through our devices.
To be more specific, an IP address is made of a string of numbers. This string consists of four numbers separated by dots. Each number can have a maximum of three digits. These numbers range from 0 to 255. So, your IP address can be anything between 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255.
But the IP address of your device isn’t arbitrarily chosen. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority allocates these addresses to your ISP.
How does an IP Address Work?
IP or Internet Protocol helps devices connected to the internet communicate with each other. Let’s understand how an IP address works in some simple steps.
We assume you are reading this blog from your home. So, most probably, your device is connected to your home network. Whenever your devices connect to the internet, it is assigned an IP address by your ISP.
Once you open the browser and search for something, the request goes through your ISP’s proxy server. After your request is performed, the information comes to your ISP at first. They identify you with your IP address and send the information back to you.
The same thing happens when you aren’t connected to your home network. If you are in the office or traveling to another country, you will connect to different networks, and your IP addresses will continue to change.
Types of IP Address
We will break down the types of IP addresses a bit for you to understand better. Please have a look at it here.
Private IP Address
All the devices under your home or office network have their own IP address. These are known as private IP addresses. When these devices connect to each other, they use this address to identify other devices.
Public IP Address
Public IP addresses are used when your devices try to connect with other devices outside their network. These addresses are assigned to your network by the ISP. Public IP addresses can change periodically.
Depending on the ability to change, public IP addresses can again be classified into two categories.
Static IP Address
Static or dedicated IP addresses don’t change at all. Once assigned to your network, they remain the same all the way through. A static IP address will be required if you plan to host your server.
Dynamic IP Address
These are the most common IP addresses used by general consumers. ISPs provide dynamic IP addresses that change from time to time.
How Websites Localize Content?
If you search for the price of a product and the search results show you the price in your local currency? Or have you found an article in your local language or a language that you easily understand? All these are done by content localization.
We intend to keep things simple. So, we will go over two basic factors of content localization.
IP Address
As you might already know, IP address is the primary way to determine your geolocation. Whenever you make a query, websites track your geolocation and search engines show you the optimized result based on your location.
Websites know which IP address is assigned to which geolocation. So, they can generate localized search results for you.
Browser Language Setting
If you read our article related to device fingerprinting, you will know that browsers send a data packet when you want to visit a website. This packet contains user agents that tell the server a lot about your browser.
Other than the operating system and browser version, user agents contain data about your browser’s language setting. So, search engines will show the results in the primary language selected in your browser.
Combining Two Factors
Sometimes, solely using any of these factors isn’t adequate to give you the optimum result. For example, your selected primary language might be English-US while you are traveling to Germany or France.
Websites take your language setting into consideration first. And depending on your geolocation, they might show you pop-ups containing links to switch to another language that will be convenient for you.
As a result, users from all over the world get results in their preferred languages. This is highly effective in identifying target audiences and catering to their needs. Whenever you search for something on the internet, search engines will show the results that are best suited to you, depending on your geolocation and browser language.
Conclusion
Identifying from where a user is accessing the web is crucial for websites to deliver content in the most convenient form. This is mostly done by tracking your IP addresses.
You can find many different tools to have extensive information about your connection. As we have mentioned earlier, Proxyway Proxy Checker is a very efficient tool to provide you with all the relevant information. Try it to check different parameters of your connection. Hope now you are clear about – This location was defined by your internet address.
