Magento 2 GeoIP Lookup Extension

Magento 2 GeoIP Lookup Extension FAQ

• Can I Integrate Magento GeoIP with Third-Party Functionality

  Yes, the Magento 2 GeoIP Lookup can be integrated with any custom and third-party functionality that requires detecting geolocation data on IP addresses. Basically, you can use this GeoIP functionality for any integrations depending on your business needs, whether you need to detect only the visitor's country or detailed geolocation data, including latitude and longitude. This makes the GeoIP Lookup a great ready-made tool that makes it easy for developers to create the custom functionality they need to empower Magento stores.

  For example, developers can use the GeoIP for custom functionality to locate a user and assign the location data to their accounts. Or, you can display popups only to New York residents to congratulate them on New York Day and offer special discounts. You can even pre-fill country and city information in the registration forms to simplify the sign-up process for your potential customers or show different product prices based on the user’s country.

  However, you can take advantage of GeoIP that is already integrated with Plumrocket extensions, ensuring full compliance with major data privacy laws and regulations. Namely, the US Privacy Laws, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), and LGPD (Brazilian General Data Protection Law) plugins provide a free built-in Magento GeoIP integration, available after you install the plugin. Read more about the benefits of GeoIP and Data Privacy plugins integration.

  All of the above can be implemented with the help of the Plumrocket GeoIP Lookup Extension. This API reference guide might be helpful for you as well. You will definitely take advantage of all those features on your website.

  For additional information, you may contact our friendly support team or request a custom development tailored to your unique needs.

• What IP Geolocation Data is Retrieved Using ipapi, MaxMind, and IpToCountry Services

  The Magento 2 GeoIP Lookup Extension uses three built-in services to retrieve IP geolocation information: two local databases (MaxMind and IpToCountry) and ipapi online service.

  On the one hand, we recommend enabling all databases to make sure you always get available geolocation data. In case one database doesn’t have any information about the specific IP address, the extension retrieves it from another source.
  
  However, each database has got its peculiarities and data specifications, providing you with a different set of location data retrieved from IP addresses. That's why you can use only the services that best suit your business needs. Let’s take a closer look at each database.

  Ipapi GeoIP Service

  The apapi is a free online service that provides real-time geolocation data. Using the ipapi service, the GeoIP Lookup extension retrieves the following geolocation data from IP addresses:

  • Country code
  • Country name
  • Region
  • City
  • Latitude
  • Longitude

  The service is perfect when you need to get real-time geolocation data from IP addresses. Unlike other built-in databases, the ipapi is an online service, which means you don’t need to upgrade databases periodically to get the latest information.

  MaxMind GeoIP Database

  The MaxMind is the leading database in IP intelligence, which you can install on your server with just a few clicks. Use the MaxMind database to return the following data set of IP addresses:

  • Continent
  • Continent Code
  • Country
  • Country Code
  • City
  • Postal Code
  • Time Zone
  • European Union Detection
  • Latitude
  • Longitude
  • Metro Code
  • Subdivision 1,2 ISO Code
  • Subdivision 1,2 Name

  Here's an example of IP geolocation data retrieved from the MaxMind database using the GeoIP Lookup extension:

   

  IpToCountry GeoIP Database

  The IpToCountry database is useful when you need to only determine country information from users’ IP addresses. The GeoIP Lookup extension uses free "IP to Country Lite" database, which provides you with extensive and accurate geolocation data. However, if you require the most recent information, you may download the "IP to Country" database on the official website in the CSV format, as it is updated on a daily basis.

  Overall, the GeoIP Lookup extension helps you get the specific IP geolocation data based on your business needs, whether it requires detailed and the most relevant information, or just a country detection.

  Please reach out to our friendly support team for any inquiries or concerns.

• What is the Priority of Using Magento 2 GeoIP Lookup Databases

  The Magento 2 GeoIP Lookup extension uses three built-in databases and services to retrieve customer location:  MaxMind, IpToCountry, and IpApi. In addition, you can enable one or more databases at the same time, which allows you to automatically retrieve geographic locations from other databases in case one of them doesn’t respond.

  So, which database takes priority when retrieving geolocation if all three databases are enabled? In fact, the priority is the same as the order in which the databases appear in the admin panel: MaxMind, IpToCountry, and then IpApi.

  Hence, the GeoIP Lookup extension uses the first service that responds. For example, if the MaxMind database does not have any information about a specific IP address, the plugin requests data from the IpToCountry service.

  Please note that if you want to get geolocation info from a specific database, the other two must be disabled from the extension backend.

  Can I change the database priority

  The database priority in the Magento 2 GeoIP Lookup extension cannot be changed. However, you can specify it when making REST API requests.

  GeoIP Lookup REST API allows you to integrate your own development with the GeoIP Lookup module. Please follow the detailed instructions on how to access the REST API and then specify the service priority when making the request. This way, you can return all available geolocation information on the IP address, setting the order of the services in the REST API link after the IP parameter.

  Note that the database priority you set when making a REST API request will be changed only for your specific request.

  You are welcome to check out our FAQs section or contact our Plumrocket support team for any additional details.

• Is Magento 2 GeoIP Lookup Compatible with Data Privacy Plugins

  Basically, the GeoIP Lookup was designed by Plumrocket to help retrieve the geolocation data on IP addresses. Developers can use it to create their own functionality that requires getting the user's geolocation.

  However, you can take full advantage of the extension already integrated into all Plumrocket data privacy modules, giving you complete control over the display of consent banners, checkboxes, and more. The Plumrocket modules are feature-rich and very easy to use as they are all compatible and most of them are integrated with each other.

  Benefits of Magneto 2 GeoIP Lookup & Data Privacy Plugins Integration

  The Magneto 2 data privacy extensions, including GDPR, CCPA, LGPD, and Cookie Consent plugins, have been developed by Plumrocket to protect your customers’ personal data, ensure their privacy, and inform the facts and purposes of all personal information collected by the website. They cover and ensure compliance with major data privacy laws and regulations in the world, including the EU, California, and Brazil.

  To simplify the implementation of data privacy laws on your Magento store and reach customers only from required countries/states, the GeoIP Lookup plugin has been integrated into the mentioned plugins.

  In particular, you can take full advantage of the data privacy modules and built-in GeoIP Lookup functionality to locate users and take appropriate action only for specific users. For example, display a cookie consent banner only for California citizens or allow access to the data privacy dashboard only for EU residents. Being able to locate a user lets you comply with local laws without disturbing users who do not apply these rules.

  Please follow the GeoIP Lookup configuration instructions to set it up correctly. Once configured, you can easily enable, for example, the “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” page only for visitors from California state (see the screenshot below).

   

   

  Please remember that you can integrate the Plumrocket GeoIP Lookup plugin with any third-party or custom functionality you need.

   

  We hope the article was informative for you. Please let us know if you have any other questions.
• How Magento 2 GeoIP Lookup Retrieves Geologation Data When CDN is Enabled

  A content delivery network, or CDN for short, is a geographically distributed network of servers that can deliver cached copies of content to the end user, with reduced latency. Content delivery networks provide high availability and increased performance on the web.

  So, as you may already know, the "one localized content provider" rule is over. Now, localized content providers are everywhere. This means that a user receives information from a provider available to them at the nearest geographical distance.

  Moreover, those providers that distribute content have different IP addresses. Therefore, a question that might arise here is which IP address GeoIP Lookup takes into account: the proxy server IP or the actual IP address of the user?

  The GeoIP Lookup plugin is intended to distinguish between IP addresses of CDN and user device IP addresses. As a result, the Plumrocket extension bypasses CDN and only gets location data from users’ real IP addresses.

  All in all, our extension supports many CDN services, which means that you can get all location data on the initial user’s IP address.

  For further details please contact our support team.