proxareWhy a city-targeted IP sometimes shows up in the wrong town, how geolocation databases work, and how to target locations without wasting data.
Residential proxies let you pick a country, and often a state or city. Then a lookup site shows a town 80 km away and you wonder whether the targeting works. Usually it does: the problem is how IP location is measured in the first place.
IP location is an estimate
An IP address has no built-in location. Companies such as MaxMind, IP2Location and ipinfo build databases from registry records, routing data, user-submitted corrections and other signals. They are very accurate at country level, but city level is a best guess, and different databases often name different cities for the same IP.
The proxy provider targets based on its own database. The website you visit uses another one. When they disagree, you see a "wrong" city.
What is reliable
- Country: very reliable with all major providers and databases.
- State or region: usually right in large countries.
- City: good in big cities, weaker in small towns and suburbs, where the IP is often placed in the nearest large city instead.
- Mobile IPs: the least precise, because carriers route traffic through regional gateways.
Check what the target sees
What matters is the location the website believes, not what a random lookup tool says. Many sites reveal it: the default store, currency, delivery postcode or local search results. Test a few IPs against your actual target before you scale up.
Targeting without wasting data
- Start at country level and narrow only if the results really differ by city.
- Expect smaller pools for small cities: slower connections and more failed requests.
- Validate the exit location automatically: request a lookup endpoint first, and skip IPs outside your target area.
- Match the rest of the identity: browser language, time zone and Accept-Language header should fit the country you target.
Format
Targeting usually goes into the username, for example user-country-fr-city-paris. The exact syntax differs per network; in the Proxare dashboard you pick the country, optionally type a city, and the lines are built for you.
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