Geo Targeting

Internet Protocol address is assigned to every computer, in addition to the MAC address that a computer has, as soon as the computer gets on and logs into the network of the world wide web. This IP address is allotted from the host, who shall the internet service and access provider. It is similar to the door number, allotted to your real world home, which is allotted by the local municipal authorities. Every server on the internet registers this IP address along with the packets of information that is being transferred to and fro along the internet lines. Now, each IP address can be tracked to the exact computer and physical location, which is called GEO POSITIONING.

This Geo Positioning and location identification based on the IP address of computers logged on the internet is now a major boon to the online advertisers, along with law enforcement authorities. Advertisement online is now a major industry, commanding billions of dollars worth expenditure. And, it would go wasted, if the target audience is not reached properly, and wrong audience are being served by the advertisement campaign. Online majors like Google, MSN, Yahoo, evolved technology and software solutions to associate the location targeting in their advertisement programs. Geo targeted ads are now a specialty of every online ad campaign. There are options available at the click of a button, to select the countries, or regions and even the language of the advertisement. The campaign is assured to be served only to those users, who fit to the location and areas, selected by the promoter, based on their IP location. This Geo Marketing has its advantages, as long as there is no error in the IP tracing and location fixing. But, if there is a slight error, the ad campaign goes wasted. However, modern software applications rule out the possibility of wrong location targeting.

For the purpose of a successful geo targeting, maintaining IP databases at the advertisers servers and frequent updating them is required. It should also be able to properly identify the usage of proxy servers by the end-users. The proxy server usage is now an increasing phenomenon to block the users' IP address being detected helping in controlling the spam and minimize virus attacks. Code should be embedded into the ad-servers, to predict and serve appropriate ads, when the Internet Service Providers, ISPs use a dynamic IP address allotment sequence.

A simple mathematical analysis of IP locations gives a four billion possible sequences of IP addresses. Analyzing each of the address and maintaining the database, attributing the geographic location to each such address is not just a task to even the latest processors, just for the sake of Geo IP targeted marketing and campaigns. Even if it is planned, there is the trouble of a constant changing of these dynamic IP addresses, due to changed hosts and routers in the internet world. Such a job is now undertaken by specialist servers called IP Tracers and Web Spiders. The advertising servers seek data from these specialist web spiders, and promote their campaigns based on the geo location attributed to the location of the end-user.

In addition to the geo marketing, the Geo targeting helps many other forms of online business like Pay Per Click advertisements, Fraud prevention through identification of suspicious payment transactions by special correlating software. Overall, Geo Targeting is another boon to every computer using person.