

Ask HN: Most accurate way to find a users location? - SeattleSeeley

Note: I'm the least technical person on our team.<p>We are building omnom.com and use Maxmind GeoIP to populate our city dropdown with nearby cities (click on city tab of homepage &#62; view dropdown)<p>It's pretty inaccurate. Our options are: Upgrade to paid to improve accuracy, use different IP location, or find some other type of user experience for people that want to browse/not put in their address. I would love any feedback/help. Thanks
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ecaron
I've done this hunt too. If anything less than the vast majority of your
site's visitors are mobile, then HTML5 geolocation isn't going to suit your
needs (at least it won't for another 5 years.)

Upgrading to MaxMind's paid database is really the best option, assuming you
can afford it. If you can't afford it and you can't cope with the inaccuracies
of the current solution, you might be able to go with a hybrid-solution that'd
incorporate Google Maps
([http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/ba...](http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/basics.html#DetectingUserLocation))

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dholowiski
Maxmind has a pay as you go option as well, which I am using for my site, and
it is extremely affordable. You are also allowed to cache their data, which I
do and saves a ton on cost. Also something I haven't done yet, in your cached
data, you can manually change IP address to Location mappings in case there
are any locations you want to manually specify.

This is the service I use: <http://www.maxmind.com/app/web_services_omni> and
if you ask they will probably give you a trial account.

I use it here: <http://localbeer.me>

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yahelc
At best, IP Geolocation will get you to a nearby city; it won't get you down
to the neighborhood/block level reliably.

Try HTML5 geolocation. The user has to give permission (through the browser),
and its not universally supported, but, the results tend to be pretty solid.
[http://html5doctor.com/finding-your-position-with-
geolocatio...](http://html5doctor.com/finding-your-position-with-geolocation/)

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HarshaThota
Try <http://www.datasciencetoolkit.org/>

