What data sources do you utilise for your IP Geolocation?

Many IP geolocation providers rely heavily on reverse DNS records to infer location. While some IP addresses include textual records that contain hints such as airport city codes or region identifiers, these records are typically maintained manually by ISP staff and are prone to errors and becoming outdated. BigDataCloud does not use DNS-based data for IP geolocation — we consider it too unreliable to serve as a primary source.

Instead, our patented technology (US Patent No. 11,792,110 B2) maps the actual routing infrastructure of the internet. We identify and categorise every publicly accessible router interface, calculate each router's geographic service area using verified ground truth data, and locate any IP address by finding the router responsible for delivering traffic to it. This approach does not require input from network operators and is updated continuously.

Our IP geolocation data solely relies on:

• WHOIS registry data
• BGP global routing data
• Self-published IP geolocation feeds (Geofeed, RFC 8805)
• Field evidence data collected from real-world observations
• Our proprietary network infrastructure and routing analysis

For a full explanation of the methodology, read The Next Generation IP Geolocation Service.