Google advertising

[Conor O'Nolan]

I wonder is anyone using Google adwords to advertise their business LOCALLY as opposed to NATIONALLY. I've had major issues with Googles' geolocation (iplocation). Basically the Google system allows you target by county, but it doesn't work. I am based in Tramore, Waterford, but Google thinks I (and therefore all Eircom broadband customers in Waterford) am in Kilkenny. For the last few weeks they assumed I was in Carlow. For more details see www.webwizards.ie/geolocationupdate.asp

I'm interested in seeing if we can get this issue raised with Google.

[John McCormac]

A lot of search engine iplocation is based on the delegated IP range lists from RIPE/ARIN/APNIC/LACNIC/AFRINIC etc. These lists do not offer any subnet granularity. The Irish ISPs generally don't really map IPs and on the newer ranges, reverse dns is not even set. Subnets can be even more problematic but those would be in the IP range whois data and take a while longer to break down on a country/county/area basis.

I don't think that the Waterford OCC people would be much help on getting Google to move on this issue. A lot of the Irish Linux users group (ILUG) posters are employed by Google and might be more useful. However the ISP ip to location problem has existed for years and Google seems to have done little to solve it because it is not their problem. It might be better to get the Irish ISPs to properly map their networks rather than concentrating on Google.

Regards...jmcc

[John McCormac]

It might be better to ask on the Irish Webmaster Forum (http://www.iwf.ie) or on the Open mailing list (http://www.webnet.ie/open). I'd have reservations about recommending the Enterprise Ireland mailing list for this kind of question as the moderators are "technology" journalists (press release recyclers rather than technologists) and good technical discussions are often limited. The conversational reply chain is broken by the fact that replies only appear after moderation which can be hours later or the middle of the next day. However there are some good people on the mailing list who deal with Google adwords and search engine marketing.

Regards...jmcc