Author: camimi Morales

Virtual Private Network (VPN) servers are proxy servers that people use daily when browsing the Internet. They use it because it shields them from being tracked by websites. As most of us are aware, websites track their visitors for advertising and marketing purposes. That’s how they can serve ads across multiple websites. By using a VPN when browsing, that no longer happens.

That’s the same reason that people use residential proxy servers. As residential proxy servers are actually home computers that are used by real individuals, websites have a much harder time differentiating between a real user and a proxy user.

Python is a programming language that is designed for universal purpose. It aims to highlight the code readability with the help of significant indentation. It is portable, as it has the ability to run on multiple operating systems — for example, Windows, Linux, and MacOS. It is an object-oriented programming language, but it also facilitates multiple programming paradigms — for example, procedural and functional programming.

About Python

Python was created by a Dutch programmer, Guido van Rossum, in the late 1980s. The name Python came from a BBC comedy series called "Monty Python’s Flying Circus." Van Rossum created Python after his years of experience in the ABC programming language. A non-profit organization was founded in 2001 to promote the development of the Python community and manage several responsibilities for various processes within the Python community. Python remains one of the most popular programming language in the world, according to a survey conducted by Stack Overflow in 2022 and a research project created by PYPL.

Most websites these days leverage the use of IP geolocation to accomplish various goals. It can be used to localize website contents or display the correct translations based on the web visitor’s geolocation. IP geolocation data can be retrieved from geolocation databases or web services just by using the web visitor’s IP address. Commonly used geolocation data includes the country, region, and city of the website visitor.

This tutorial demonstrates how to implement the IP geolocation service, using the service from IP2Location.io, into a website built with React. To accomplish this, you will need to install React, Node.js, Express, and IP2Location.io modules. Below are the brief descriptions of each component.

In this article, we will show you how to use IP2Location.io PHP SDK in CakePHP to retrieve the geolocation information and user redirection.

CakePHP is a powerful open-source web framework that is widely used by the developers worldwide. It enables the developers to build a powerful yet extendable website by providing them with a set of tools. Other than that, developers also can make use of CakePHP plugins to enhance the website. Those plugins can help to add on more functionalities such as enhanced authentication, integration with external web services and so on.

Geolocation is an important feature for a website because it enables online businesses to provide targeted content to the prospective users based on their geographic location. By using geolocation data, the website owner can provide localized content, such as local news, weather, and events and have the content displayed in the native language. It also can help prevent fraud by allowing businesses to detect and block suspicious activities originating from certain geographic regions. It is an important tool for website owners and developers to enhance user experience and prevent fraudulence.

Geolocation can be implemented in a variety of ways, such as at the web server layer, programming language layer, or through the use of an SDK. In our previous article, we demonstrated how to install geolocation into the Apache server. In this article, I will explore another approach by installing geolocation into the PHP language using the PECL install. For this demonstration, we will be using IP2Location, the same geolocation provider, so you can have an understanding of how geolocation works in different environments.

Geolocation, a technology is allowing you to find out where your visitor’s location by using an IP address, is a ubiquitous solution that has been used in many industries. For example, if you are using Google Analytics or Matomo to track your visitors, you are using the geolocation solution. If you embed a cool widget to automatically fill the country or region information, you are using the geolocation solution. To name a few.

There are many reasons to implement geolocation, such as to better serve your audiences, to tailor make a better browsing experience, to monitor the buying pattern, to combat fraud, and so on. In this article, I’m going to show you how to implement the geolocation features in an Apache server and touch base on some usage scenarios. Here, I will use the IP2Location geolocation library for Apache, PHP programming language, and Debian OS.