Data Fields

Quova identifies geographic and contextual data about a Web visitor’s geographical location – all without invading the user’s privacy.

Geographic Data

Quova delivers valuable geographic data attributes, including continent, country, state, city, postal/zip code, latitude/longitude, phone prefix/area code, time zone and DMA (Nielsen Designated Market Area) codes.

Network Characteristics

Sometimes geographic information alone is not enough to accurately determine a user’s location. The underlying Internet topology can cause the user to be far away from the publicly visible IP address representing that user. Quova offers network characteristic data attributes to describe the underlying Internet infrastructure which helps to better determine the proximity of the end user to the IP address being geolocated.

IP Routing Type

Quova created the concept of IP routing type to describe the routing characteristics of an Internet connection. For example, most US Internet traffic accesses the Web via broadband. The remainder includes dial-up or POP connections (including AOL) and multiple other values that can help determine whether the user is in the same location as the IP address would indicate. The power of the IP routing type is that it can detail to what degree a user can be expected to be accessing the Internet from the same location as that of the IP address. For example, if the IP routing type is fixed, as is the case with cable or DSL broadband connections, the user’s location can be determined with considerable precision at the country, state and city level.

Proxies

Much of the risk in IP geolocation implementation is how to handle anomalies such as proxies, anonymous proxies, and AOL users. For most IP addresses, Quova supplies the IP routing type, identifies anonymous proxy use and flags AOL users. Some connections can only be geographically pinpointed to a certain level – for example, it is possible to accurately determine what country an AOL user is connecting from, but not from what state or city. Quova designates values in certain kinds of IP routing types that highlight the uncertainty of the geolocation of a user connecting to the Internet in this manner. Geolocating this type of connection to the Internet is difficult because anonymous, cache and other proxies can obscure accurate geographic information. Quova tracks the use of individual anonymizing proxies around the world and currently has more then 600,000 identified. Identifying anonymizer use is crucial is both regulatory and contractual compliance.

Confidence Factors

Included in every data edition are the basic geographic elements of country, state and city, and for each of these three values, Quova assigns a confidence factor. The higher the number, the more evidence is available to accurately determine the location of the user. Quova’s confidence factors highlight the uncertainties that can impact vital business decisions.

Data Fields Chart


Data Field Benefit
Continent Quova locates our data in the seven continents of Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.
Country Quova supplies the country of origin for the IP connection, identified using both the full country name and the International Standard Organization two letter country codes defined in ISO-3166.
Region Region includes generic regional information (e.g. Northwest) and some country-specific regions (e.g. Northern Ireland). Region information is currently available for the US, UK, Brazil, Denmark, France and the Philippines.
State Quova provides information for States and Provinces (i.e. the first level administration division) in all countries where they exist.
City Quova locates users to their individual cites and recognizes approximately 150,000 distinct international locations.
Postal/zip code Postal/zip codes are provided for all of the US, Canada, and the UK, and over 20 other countries.
Time zone Time zone is provided as a +/- offset from GMT so that you can calculate what time it is in the location provided.
Latitude/Longitude Latitude and Longitude are provided for applications that need to calculate distance or to eliminate ambiguity among places when comparing current location with past locations where location names may have changed. It can also be used with other attributes, like country, to build a richer picture of the relationship between two locations (e.g. distance may be treated differently depending on whether the two locations are in the same country or not).
Phone number prefix Phone number prefixes, also known as area codes, are provided for the US and Canada for reference purposes
Designated Market Area (DMA) Designated Market Areas (DMA’s) are groupings of US counties that are reached by a specific groups of TV stations as specified by Neilson Media Research. Dams are often used by advertisers to segregate and target specific areas of the country. There are 210 DMA’s in the US.
Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) are geographical boundaries of US counties or towns using the Core-Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) as defined by the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from data gathered by the US Census Bureau. There is extensive demographic information available for these areas, and Quova provides them to help our customers understand the demographics of their populations.
Network Characteristics
AOL user flag Quova provides a simple Yes or No answer to identify users who connect through AOL. This can be important because often AOL users appear to be connecting through locations that are far from their actual location because AOL routes the bulk of their traffic through a relatively small number of proxies. Knowing whether a user uses AOL can also be important when building a history of a user’s activity.
Connection Type Users can connect to the Internet in several different ways. Quova categorizes connections into the following types: Dial-up, Cable, DSL, Fixed Wireless, Mobile Wireless, Satellite, ISDN, Frame Relay, OCX (Optical Connections, i.e. fiber optics), and TX (leased lines, i.e. T1, T2, T3 and T4).
Line Speed Based on the connection type, Quova indicates the speed of the connection to the Internet into high, medium or low. This information is determined by the Connection Type.
IP Routing Type The IP Routing Type specifies how the connection is routed through the Internet and can be used to determine how close the user is to the public IP address. For example, a user connecting through a “fixed” connection is likely very close to the connection. A user connecting through a “regional proxy” is likely in the same country as the connection, whereas a user connecting through a “satellite” connection may be anywhere.
Second-Level Domain Quova identifies the second-level domain (SLD) associated with the connection. The SLD is the part of the domain name that precedes the top-level domain. For example, in www.quova.com, “quova” is the second-level domain because it comes before the “.com”. The SLD can often be used to identify the ISP or organization providing the connection.
Top-Level Domain Quova provides the top-level domain (TLD) associated with the connection. The TLD is the last part of the domain name (e.g. com, net, edu, mil, uk, jp, etc.). The TLD can be used to determine if the IP address is associated with education networks (.edu), the US Department of Defense (.mil), or a specific country like Japan (.jp).
Carrier The Carrier field provides the name of the organization responsible for the traffic carried on a particular network or set of networks designated as an Autonomous System (AS). This field provides a more human readable representation than the information provided in the Autonomous System Number (ASN) field.
ASN The Autonomous System Number (ASN) is a globally unique number assigned to a group of networks administered by a single entity such as a Network Service Provider (NSP) or very large organization. Using the ASN provides more consistency than using the Carrier information because while the specific names and ownerships of networks change, ASNs for particular networks remain static.
Registering Organization The Registering Organization is the entity responsible for the the actions and content associated with a given block of IP addresses. This is in contrast to the Carrier, which is responsible for the routing of traffic for network blocks. Registering Organizations include many types of entities, including corporate, government, or educational entities, and ISPs managing the allocation and use of network blocks.
Premium Files
Anonymizer Quova provides several status designations for anonymized Internet connections: Private, Active, Suspect, Inactive, and Unknown. If there is no designation, then there is no specific evidence that the IP address has been associated with an anonymous proxy.