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My question IS NOT how accurate a specific geolocation database is, rather how much the accuracy of the ip ranges are changing over the years (and with that the time zones to this ranges).
I have a dataset of ip addresses from 2010/2011 (or maybe older) and asking myself how accurate it is, to use a Geolocation database from 2014 for this addresses. Are the ranges changing over the years? (It seems so, or companies wouldn't update their geolocation databases) And if they are changing: How much every year? Around 1-2% or so? How accurate can ip adresses which are a specific number of years old match to an up to date geolocation database?
I tried to find articles or paper to this topic, but couldn't find anything (about the changing of ip ranges over the years).
I already saw this article IP localization: mapping ip->location fixed over time? and I also read that some companies say "we update our databse to 5% every year or month", but how much influence does this really have to the ip ranges over time?
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At some point its geolocation may be subject to change, even if that's because an end-user moves house and no longer retains the same static IP. Internet service providers have a huge portion of the IP space to distribute among their customers. They may change the IP address of an end-user for any number of reasons.
The way the IP-based geolocation works is simply by checking which IP range is used by which area, using an IP-to-location database. So, you can find the information like the country and the city that your users come from, just by knowing their IP address.
MaxMind's GeoIP City database, which is optimized for locating end-users, was by far the most accurate in geolocating the French DSL users, accurately geolocating 70% of addresses within 10km of the ground truth.
IP-based geolocation services provide 55 percent to 80 percent accuracy for a user's region or state. And they provide 50 percent to 75 percent accuracy for a user's city. In practice, the actual accuracy may vary from provider to provider and depending on the location of the device.
IP address range being allocated, released or reallocated by regional registry everyday.
In short, you should see >10% of changes every year. Therefore, using 2014 geolocation database on 2010 IP address is meaningless.
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