How to get country from IP address?

[PhiltheBear]

This may not be the best place to post this but...

1) I'm based in the United Kingdom
2) I have some websites which have affiliate links on them
3) I get visitors to those sites from many different countries - mainly UK and US but also Canada / Australia....

Here's the problem - if I get a visitor from the US showing him a UK affiliate link is a waste of time. Therefore, what I want to do is a) check his IP address and b) depending on which country he's from direct him to a webpage which only carries affiliate links valid in his country.

Oh - I'd prefer to do this without subscribing to some kind of expensive service.

My programming isn't that great - but I can handle php/html and VB/Javascript at a push.

Any thoughts?

 

[apekillape]

There are geolocation/IP redirect progs in abundance, I've been looking into this at length lately myself. I believe it's usually done in php.

http://ip-to-country.webhosting.info/

That should help you get started. If I get it up this weekend (pardon the pun) I'll report back.

N

 

[BigBlue]

There's some open source libs in php that can help you do this as well. You can show different geo-targeted ad codes based on the IP detection.

Here is one such tutorial that explains what you're trying to do exactly.

hxxp://www.9*99tutori*als.com/tutorial-geo-target-your-visit*ors.html

 

[PhiltheBear]

Thank you for your replies - I think I can get what I want out of those sites. I have attempted to give 'thanks' but it may not have worked. If it didn't I'll return and try again later.

 

[bhnoobz]

Check out

http://www.maxmind.com

. They have a wide range of IP databases . They also provide code in php/perl/c/c#/c++/python to utilize their databases.

 

[PhiltheBear]

Check out

http://www.maxmind.com

. They have a wide range of IP databases . They also provide code in php/perl/c/c#/c++/python to utilize their databases.

Thank you - I'd actually used them before (in a previous life) but forgotten them, largely because the service I'd used was somewhat more complex than the one I need now - and it cost quite a bit!

 

[bpaw]

If you have a VPS or dedicated server and are able to install software, MaxMind offers a free option. Just download and install the free GeoIP database and mod_geoip packages. Then use mod_rewrite to redirect traffic based on country to whatever website you want. The last part can simply be done through .htaccess.

 

[PhiltheBear]

If you have a VPS or dedicated server and are able to install software, MaxMind offers a free option. Just download and install the free GeoIP database and mod_geoip packages. Then use mod_rewrite to redirect traffic based on country to whatever website you want. The last part can simply be done through .htaccess.

Unfortunately, their freebie package isn't as accurate as the paid for one. In particular it doesn't deal with countries coming in via users of Yahoo. OTOH I don't know if any of the others do...