geomarketing In marketing, geomarketing (also called marketing geography) is a discipline that uses geolocation (Geography, geographic information) in the process of planning and implementation of marketing activities.

and

internet marketing The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, publ ...

, geotargeting is the method of delivering different content to visitors based on their

geolocation Geopositioning is the process of determining or estimating the geographic position of an object or a person. Geopositioning yields a set of Geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinates (such as latitude and longitude) in a given map datum ...

. This includes country, region/state, city, metro code/ zip code, organization,

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

, ISP, or other criteria. A common usage of geotargeting is found in

online advertising Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...

, as well as

internet television Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as films and television show, television series, Streaming media, streamed over the Internet. Standing in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by Broadc ...

with sites such as iPlayer and

Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...

. In these circumstances, content is often restricted to users geolocated in specific countries; this approach serves as a means of implementing

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...

. Use of proxy servers and

virtual private network Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not con ...

s may give a false location.

Geographical information provided by the visitor

In geotargeting with

geolocation software In computing, Internet geolocation is software capable of deducing the geographic position of a device connected to the Internet. For example, the device's IP address can be used to determine the country, city, or ZIP code, determining its geograph ...

, the

is based on geographical and other personal information that is provided by the visitor or others.

Content by choice

Some websites, for example

FedEx FedEx Corporation, originally known as Federal Express Corporation, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate holding company specializing in Package delivery, transportation, e-commerce, and ...

and UPS, utilize geotargeting by giving users the choice to select their country location. The user is then presented with different site or article content depending on their selection.

Automated different content

In internet marketing and geomarketing, the delivery of different content based on the geographical

and other personal information is automated. A good example is the

Ace Hardware Ace Hardware Corporation is an American hardware retailers' cooperative based in Oak Brook, Illinois, United States. It is the largest non-grocery retail cooperative in the United States. Founded on October 25, 1924, as "Ace Stores", the co ...

website at www.acehardware.com. The company utilizes geolocation software to power the “My Local Ace” section of its website. Based on a site visitor's location, the website's online locator service can show the visitor how many stores are in their area, as well as a city-level locator map to help the customer find the store closest to their address. Different offers may be presented depending on local conditions, e.g. weather, local competitors, local trends, etc.

IP spidering

The automated discovery of user person/organisation/city-level geolocation information based on

es by traceroute, pings, and a combination of other tools and methods is far more advanced. It is dependent on the pre-analysis of the entire IP address space. There are more than 4 billion possible IPv4 addresses, and detailed analysis of each of them is a Herculean task, especially in light of the fact that IP addresses are constantly being assigned, allocated, reallocated, moved, and changed due to routers being moved, enterprises being assigned IP addresses or moving, and networks being built or changed. In order to keep up with these changes, complex algorithms, bandwidth measurement and mapping technology, and finely tuned delivery mechanisms are necessary. Once all of the IP space is analyzed, each address must be periodically updated to reflect changes in the IP address information without invading a user's privacy. This process is similar in scale to the task of Web spidering.

IP delivery in SEO

Websites utilize IP delivery for

search engine optimization Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the quality and quantity of Web traffic, website traffic to a website or a web page from web search engine, search engines. SEO targets unpaid search traffic (usually referred to as ...

(SEO) in a method called cloaking. SEOs maintain a list of IP addresses that are known to be servers owned by a search engine and used to run their crawler applications (spiders). The visitor's IP address is compared to the list, and if it is determined to be a search engine spider, it is presented with different web page content from human visitors. Cloaking is against most search engines' webmaster guidelines.Google webmaster guidelines
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Although search engine guidelines imply that any type of cloaking is bad, there are instances when the practice may be legitimate. The subject is very controversial and continues to be debated by SEO experts. "Cloaking" via IP delivery is different from cloaking via "

user agent On the Web, a user agent is a software agent responsible for retrieving and facilitating end-user interaction with Web content. This includes all web browsers, such as Google Chrome and Safari A safari (; originally ) is an overland jour ...

". While IP address spoofing is harder and more reliable than user-agent spoofing, it is also harder to keep the list of IP addresses used by search engines for their crawlers up-to-date. An outdated list of active crawler IP addresses enables the search engines to detect cloaking and may result in a removal of the site from the search engine's index.

Common uses

*Content Localization: Webmasters who want to serve local content on a global domain.Internet IP Address Allocation by Country 2008 Report
Study showing the IP address distribution of the Internet in 2007Internet IP Address Allocation by Country 2009 Report
Study showing the IP address distribution of the Internet in 2008 *

Copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

owners and delivery networks restrict streams based on the geographical information. * Pay per click advertisement to have ads appear only to users who live in selected locations. * Display advertisement where banner or other multimedia ads are displayed based on the visitor's location. * The use of connection speed data correlated to IP address to tailor content. * Online analytics identify live the correlation of city-level geography, connection speed data, and certain demographic data to IP addresses. * Enhanced performance networks provide superior customer targeting to advertisers. * Fraud prevention identifies suspicious payment transactions live by correlations between IP address and additional information (billing records, email header).Credit Card Fraud Prevention Tips
Top 10 Tips to Prevent Online Credit Card Fraud for Merchants * City advertising by advertising on web sites with extensive content related to particular cities. Such websites can connect large city audiences with products/services for sale in those cities. Surfers searching for information about particular cities find adverts on such web sites as a result of city name related searches rather than product/service keyword searches. In this way businesses, e.g. shops, restaurants, can advertise and reach out to consumers located in the real-world localities of their product/service offerings. * Content based on local time using IP geolocation. * Use of a content distribution network to serve data from a nearby server. * Website Personalization, where website content is changed and replaced based on visitor location. * One-to-one or household IP targeting surfaces display advertisements to individual buildings or homes. * Content / Ad verification - changing IPs for content compliance or ad verification.

References

{{SearchEngineOptimization Geodemography Geographic position Market research Market segmentation Online advertising