IP Address: Ownership Location Versus IP Resolve
-
We are a US based ecommerce company that recently switched hosting to a Canadian owned company. I was told we would have a US based IP address but noticed yesterday that the MOZ bar is listing my website, 1800doorbell.com as a Canadian company.
I've researched this online and what's typically stated is that your IP location needs to be in the Geo area you serve. When I brought his up to my host they stated:
"The location being reported by many of these tools will be the one from the WHOIS. Since our corporation is registered in Canada, it will return a matching result. You can verify the location of the address by issuing a traceroute and examining the location codes at the end of the traceroute. For example, on: 96.125.180.207"
So now I am really confused. What matters to me is how the search engines see my IP address. Will/do they see it as a US IP address?
Below is the output from DNSstuff and thanks for any help:
This is what I received back from DNSstuff:
| ASN | 12179 |
| Name | INTERNAP-2BLK |
| Description | - Internap Network Services Corporation |
| # Peers | 11 |
| # IPv4 Origin Ranges | 32 |
| # IPv6 Origin Ranges | 2 |
| Registrar | ARIN |
| Allocation date | Apr 13, 1999 |
| Country Code | US || |
| Reverse | unknown.static.dal01.cologlobal.com. |
| Reverse-verified | No |
| Origin AS | - Internap Network S... |
| Country Code | CA |
| Country | Canada |
| Region | North America |
| Population | 31592805 |
| Top-level Domain | CA |
| IPv4 Ranges | 5944 |
| IPv6 Ranges | 336 |
| Currency | Canadian Dollar |
| Currency Code | CAD |
| IP Range - Start | 96.125.176.0 |
| IP Range - End | 96.125.191.255 |
| Registrar | ARIN |
| Allocation date | May 10, 2011 | -
Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it.
If I were strictly trying to understand how Google, for example, sees my IP address, do they see it as a Canadian IP address even though it "Resolves" to Dallas, TX?
-
There are a few key things to keep in mind when it comes to the location of your IP.
The easiest question, do you only want US traffic. If so the easiest thing to do is go into Google Webmaster Tools and change your settings http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ Click the cog on the right and select "Site Settings" then select your "Geographic target".
This was created because many users decided to go with cheap hosting offshore.
Other factors:
How old is your domain = Creation Date: 24 Sep 2001, wayback machine has indexed knowledge of your site since 2001 as well (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://1800doorbell.com) A long term knowledge of the site by Google will not cause it to suddenly target a new location
What does your link profile look like: If a large portion of links pointing to your site are from US sites it will deliver US traffic regardless of its location
Does your content target a US market?: it seems too, however when I look at your contact us page http://www.1800doorbell.com/db800-contact.htm your contact info is an image with a US address, Google will be unable to crawl this information.
There are many factors why Google will decide what local traffic to send you based on your sites history. But the safest bet is to select it in Webmaster Tools.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Adding Incorrect Location to the end of Title Tags in SERPs
I have an issue with the way Google is adding to a client’s Title Tag. Since we relaunched the website a few months ago, Google has been adding an indiscriminate “– London” to the end of title tags. That would be fine if the company was solely London based but we have stores outside London too, and it’s adding “– London” to the end of those individual store title tags there too. So, if you do a search for “location widget” our page title is:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DrewDaviesLondon
“location widget | Brand name”
but then Google pops in:
“location widget | Brand name - London”
Which isn’t great if the location is in Scotland! We are adding structured data to the store pages to try and combat this, the store pages are all well optimised for the location (and ranking well), but I’m wondering if I’ve missed anything obvious? I thought it might lesson as the new site became more trusted in Google, but the rogue “London” seems to be increasing... Thanks for your help!0 -
Intermittent DNS errors. IP team not able to diagnose
Intermittent DNS errors showing up in GSC for our fashion portal www.AJIO.com. Our IP team doesn't find any issues at our end. Everytime i write to them, they come back saying 'DNS is resolving fine in all servers'. How do we resolve this? Pl help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AJIOreliance0 -
Change of Address in Google Search Console
I have merged domains before and it went rather smoothly following the Moz Guide - https://moz.com/blog/save-your-website-with-redirects . I've got a new challenge ahead of me though in that a client is buying the blog subdirectory associated with another domain. So it's the blog only, not the complete domain therefore a change of address for a site section doesn't exist. I believe the course of action will be the same except we'll just skip the change of address step since the original owner wants to maintain the TLD. Part of the contract is that we'll get the content which will be ported over to our domain and he'll maintain the 301's as requested and into perpetuity. Our domain is not brand new and has some credible links. Anyone encounter a transition of a partial domain before? Thanks for your help/suggestions.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoaustin0 -
NAP - is lack of consistency in address elements an issue?
I've been looking at a local business in London and they have multi-sites, each with multiple versions of the same address in their NAP - they're using the correct addresses, with variations in terms of order of address elements (with some missing out London, and some including London) For example, one listing puts the postcode after the city district - another before. Sometimes London is included in the address, though often not (the postal service doesn't include London in their "official version" of the addresses). So the addresses are never wrong - it's just the elements in the address are mixed up a little, and some include London, and some do not. Should I be concerned about this lack of address consistency, or should I try to exact match the various versions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
"Hot Desk" type office space to establish addresses in multiple locations
Hello Mozzers, I'm noticing increasing numbers of clients' competitors getting physical addresses and phone numbers in multiple locations, no doubt partly for SEO purposes. These are little more than ghost presences (in hot desk style office space) and the phone numbers are simply diverted. Do such physical addresses put them at an SEO advantage (over and above those who don't have hot desk style space and location phone numbers). Or does Google weed out hot desk type office spaces where they can? Your thoughts/experience would be very welcome! Thanks in advance, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Is Content Location Determined by Source Code or Visual Location in Search Engine's Mind?
I have a page with 2 scroll features. First 1/3 of the page (from left) has thumb pictures (not original content) and a vertical scroll next to. Remaining 2/3 of the page has a lot of unique content and a vertical scroll next to it. Question: Visually on a computer, the unique content is right next to the thumbs, but in the source code the original content shows after these thumbs. Does that mean search engines will see this content as "below the fold" and actually, placing this content below the thumbs (requiring a lot of scrolling to get to the original content) would in a search engine's mind be the exact same location of the content, as the source code shows the same location? I am trying to understand if search engines base their analysis on source code or also visual location of content? thx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
E-Commerce site - How do I geo-target towns/cities/states if there aren't any store locations?
Site = e-commerce Products = clothing (no apparel can be location specific like sports gear where you can do the location specific team gear (NBA, NFL, etc)) Problems = a. no store front b. I don't want to do any sitewides (footers, sidebars, etc) because of the penguin update Question = How do you geo-target these category pages and product pages? Ideas = a. reviews with clients locations b. blog posts with clients images wearing apparel and location description and keywords that also links back to that category or be it product page (images geo- targeted, tags, and description) c. ? Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cyclone0 -
Changing Business Addresses
Anyone have a good local search "best practices" resource for advising a client who is changing business addresses (aside from cross your fingers). For example, order of updating local citations (website first, google places, others). Time frame for update to take effect? Other issues folks have faced in updating addresses? I regularly follow David Mihm, Mike Blumenthal, & Andrew Shotland, I was just curious what the Moz community might be able to add. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gyi0