What's my IP? Google now answers directly

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What's my IP? Google now answers directly

JonW

7:06 pm on Oct 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

G now reports the IP address of your connection to common IP lookup queries.

robzilla

10:05 pm on Oct 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

Took them long enough, but I'm grateful nonetheless. Was getting tired of those slow, ad-laden sites. Thanks for the heads up.

rollinj

2:51 am on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

I thought this type of announcement would have brought a little more hatred from this group.

Sgt_Kickaxe

3:18 am on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

I guess nobody in "this group" was running an IP reporting site. Don't worry, Google will eventually cannibalize another useful site or three by launching a competing service and giving it an untouchable spot in serps. It's how they operate of late, the "untouchable spot in serps" being the problem. It's a company/livelihood destroying problem in fact.

As for hatred, I have the right, I have followed the guidelines for years and still got smacked twice this month, in the wallet by a machine no less. Try telling THAT to the kids at Christmas.

"Daddy, doesn't Google make billions every month because of websites? Why would they take your money?" no comment.

MrSavage

3:55 am on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

Thanks for reporting that. It's completely relevant. It's an indicator on Google providing the "answers" which was brought up by Schmidt lately. I think it's called another brick in the wall. The next one is the Google music service. I'm sure if you type in "best rap artist" they might have their own answer rather than yours. Just another brick in the wall...

tedster

4:22 am on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

"IP Address Lookup" and "IP Address Lookup Service" do NOT trigger the report at the top of the results. They give normal SERPs from the various services.

"What is my IP address" does - it's the direct question, sort of like a "define" query.

kidder

4:37 am on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

I could not resist, I typed in "what is my OS" and found websites... I guess they are still working on that one.

rlange

3:48 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

MrSavage wrote:
I'm sure if you type in "best rap artist" they might have their own answer rather than yours.

I've never seen Google give a subjective answer to a direct question. Every answer that Google gives seems to be short and objective, from "population of china" to "height of the empire state building".

I'm OK with Google answering those types of questions directly.

--
Ryan

Sgt_Kickaxe

4:03 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

"IP Address Lookup" and "IP Address Lookup Service" do NOT trigger the report at the top of the results. They give normal SERPs from the various services.

"What is my IP address" does - it's the direct question, sort of like a "define" query.

Drop the "lookup" and other words, just type "IP Address". While useful Google's entry is in spot #1, again, and offers nothing more whereas Whois type sites do.

Don't think it's a problem? type "pizza" and watch Google encourage you to bypass looking up websites altogether. It's a problem for a SEARCH engine, really.

P.S. if you DO type pizza beware because they check the little "remember this location" by default for you and will always serve up PLACES from that city for you, who needs websites on SEARCH results pages, not Google.

[edited by: Sgt_Kickaxe at 4:19 pm (utc) on Oct 20, 2011]

mhansen

4:17 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

I'm sure they will file a patent for: "Method to lookup and display a users IP address in a search result" by the end of the week.

I wonder what whatsmyip.org feels about all this, after all... isn't that kinda brand stomping? They built a very useful service around this exact single phrase.

Just for kicks... what is my neighbors IP, still shows mine. How long?

Sgt_Kickaxe

4:20 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

Just for kicks... what is my neighbors IP, still shows mine.

That's rich, thanks for sharing that, too funny. Sad, but funny.

Leosghost

4:45 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

They Geo-located me down to under 500 metres since a year ago ..small French village on the sea shore 2000 inhabitants.. ( always shows at the left side of serps ..if I go to Google.fr ) so they could already do this and were doing ages ago ..so just returning my actual in IP "visible" numerical form if I type "my ip" ( you don't need to type more than those 2 words )..is just them owning up to what they know..

crushing the IP sites probably never entered their thoughts..do you watch out for ants when you walk ?

When being signed in to + becomes mandatory to get into search then they'll greet you by name ..and tell ( in a Googly version of "mary in space" speaking out loud ) you about the new pron you might like :)

mhansen

4:49 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

Thats funny... I had to do a quick search for "mary in space" and the Google-suggested-youtube-video that shows up, is "The Art of Peeing in outer Space, with Mary Roach"... hmmm...

There is a message in there somewhere.

Leosghost

4:53 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

The "mary in space" I was thinking of was a variant voice of the female one ( choose via drop down ) that used to be in the MS text to speech engine shipped with their OS's since maybe win98 onwards..honest :)

mhansen

5:00 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

LOL

netmeg

5:05 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

Don't think it's a problem? type "pizza" and watch Google encourage you to bypass looking up websites altogether.

So does SIRI on my iPhone.

Sgt_Kickaxe

7:30 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

crushing the IP sites probably never entered their thoughts..do you watch out for ants when you walk ?

If you're the ant curator and people come to your establishment to find and look at ants you had better watch for ants when you walk, ya know?

ErnestHemingway

7:51 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

YOU YES YOU!
Your website and keyword is next on our TO-DO list.

My friend used to rank for that term, I don't care about the traffic and such but this is not good.

A query like such:

"how old is the steve jobs" in the past would provide a website now Google keeps the visitor on the website and answers it right away this "how old" query can be performed for any famous entity and Google won't let you leave their website.

I have a feeling with Panda pushing Wikipedia on top I guess Google will acquire Wikipedia.

Those of you who are happy by this service I hope day comes when someone types "payday loans" not your site shows up but Google's own.

This is a SAD day, Google is aggressively entering every market.

jecasc

8:04 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

In the case of the IP Google is at least a primary source - you are using Google - Google knows your IP and diplays it. It's worse when Google acts like a parasite - extracting knowledge or information from websites and then displaying it.

Chrispcritters

11:52 pm on Oct 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

Interestingly I happen to run one of the IP address sites and noticed the change this weekend. I was expecting to see some rather drastic shifts in traffic but have yet to see any changes outside the normal fluctuations of traffic. I'll be curious to see if after a week or two there are any consistent changes in traffic.

Staffa

12:23 am on Oct 21, 2011 (gmt 0)

I don't think that this will have a great impact on IP address sites, UNLESS G expands the 'Learn More' with a full listing same as IP address sites.

After all showing the visitor his/her IP address is something we all can do on our sites. In fact, there are a good number of sites that do this as standard.

People looking for IP addresses will want more than to see their own number which, most likely, they know without looking anywhere anyway ;o)