Buy WSN Knowledge Base For Less

Geolocation Targeting With WSN Knowledge Base

Geolocation is how a website determines where the person viewing it is located in the world. There are two approaches to geolocation: IP geolocation and browser prompt geolocation.

With IP geolocation, the visitor's IP address is checked against a database to determine where they're likely located. WSN Knowledge Base makes use of maxmind's free GeoLite City database. Just install WSN Knowledge Base and keep the geolocation data box checked in the installer to get it. This data is usually accurate to the nearest city or about 15 miles -- see the bottom of the page for an example determining your location. While less precise than the browser method, it has the major advantage of not requiring any user interaction and thus not scaring anybody away.

If your users are moving about on mobile devices and you need much more exact locations, there's the browser-based geolocation switch which you can enable in WSN Knowledge Base at Admin Panel -> Settings -> Switches. When someone arrives at your site their web browser will prompt them to ask if they want to allow your website to know where they are -- they can approve or disapprove.

Once you've got a form of geolocation selected and enabled, it's time to take advantage of it. By showing visitors their local businesses, products or information, you create an improved visitor experience which drives more sales and/or advertising revenue. Pre-fill the distance search box based on the location of the visitor's IP address, or make toplists displaying listings close to the visitor without having to prompt them about where they are. This can be especially useful for targeting sponsored listings in a business directory to show them to nearby people.

When geolocation is loaded, WSN Knowledge Base will automatically record the location associated with submissions and registrations and will allow you to search or ban by location. On the front end, the visitor will find that their correct timezone has been automatically selected for them and the search box has automatically filled in their city. You can also create any localized toplists you wish to create at Admin Panel -> Templates -> Toplist Generator. Finally, you'll also be able to use the template variable {THISMEMBERIPLOCATION} to display the location of the viewer in text wherever you wish.

Note you will need approximately 50 MB free disk space to install the IP location database.

Example IP geolocation:


This product includes GeoLite data created by MaxMind, available from http://www.maxmind.com