Can I get IP chinese/us ip failover?

[Shenron]

Hello,

I'm running a foreign website and I translated it into english and chinese. Now i'm wondering whether it would be possible to get a US and chinese IP to improve ranks in google. Do you have any hints?

Thanks

[bill]

You could host the site in the countries where you want the IP.

The importance of hosting Top Sites in China; Myth or Reality? [webmasterworld.com]

[Shenron]

Well I can't, my site is pretty big so I bought servers which are hosted in a datacenter in europe. China and US are too far away, I can't go there and have my servers in another datacenter.

That's why I would like just to have an IP address.
Don't know how if this possible and how it works.

[Romeo]

If you host in Europe, you have a European IP address (or more precisely: an IP address belonging to an AS in Europe).
If you want an US IP address, you have to host somewhere in the US, where the network infrastructure consists of US-American AS networks. If you want a Chinese ... well, you need a hoster in China, which has a Chinese ASN.

This is the way the internet works: Autonomous systems (provider networks) interconnected by BGP routers.
You can't chose IP addresses freely, you get what the provider has been assigned within his AS.

Kind regards,
R.

[jtara]

This should be possible. But I think it is doubtful that it will achieve what you want - at least in the long term.

There is no requirement that you use IPs that are assigned to the region your servers are physically in.

Look at Google - Google uses their ARIN-assigned IPs all over the world. Telecoms typically use their home-country-assigned IPs whereever they operate. So, you will often see an IP in N.Y. that geolocates to, say London or Hong Kong, because it is a telecom's endpoint router.

There are a couple of paths you could persue. Get your own IP blocks. This may or may not be possible, depending on the rules of the issuing agencies. You may have to have a business presence in the countries you want the IPs from. Your data center should be able to then advertise routes to these IP blocks.

The other alternative would be to see if you can strike a deal with American and Chinese telecoms that have a presence in your data center. Given your situation, I would assume that there ARE American and Chinese telecoms in your data center - or else you need a new data center! :)

(Here is an example that I found after playing around with some domains mentioned in the linked-to thread above. Singtel has a link to Los Angeles. They have 206.208... APAC-issued IP addresses that are physically located in L.A. I get a 13mSec ping to them from San Diego - they are definately NOT in Asia!)

Now, here's the problem with this... Geolocation based on IP address is obviously an inexact science. Nobody knows this better than Google, because they themselves are the exception that breaks the rule - based on IP address alone, every Google server in the world will geolocate to Mountain View...

If you're trying to geolocate a server manually, there are clues you can use to determine the real location. By tracing through different routes, using geolocation of "correctly" assigned IPs along the route, and noting latency along the unknown portion of the path, it's possible to take a good guess.

For example, as closely as the difference between Osaka and Tokyo, as I did recently on a Google datacenter thread here.

So, you really aren't going to fool anybody that your servers are in the U.S. or China. Whether or not you will fool search engines - for a while - is anybody's guess.

You might set-up proxy servers in the U.S. and China. Proxy servers don't do a lot of work vs. a web server running active content, and so you might not find it necessary to install your own dedicated servers. These would geolocate unabiguously in the U.S. and China.

A really savvy investigator might notice the increased latency of the HTTP replies, but then would only be able to estimate distance - not direction.

[Romeo]

Yes, large Telcos and large networking entities like Google have spread their AS as you said. The main Google AS (15169) seems to be connected to 193 peers using 25 peering routers.

However, the telcos usually don't host webservers for customers at their routing endpoints, and the reality with most colo and webserver hosters looks slightly different. If it is a small one, he may even be part of his networking provider's AS, and if he is on his own AS, he will be lucky keeping it running as it is, connected with 2 upstreams.

You have one webserver being colo hosted for 50$/month somewhere and want them to get a Chinese AS routed into their datacentre for you for just one IP address? Good look.
You want to get a Chinese IP address block assigned on your own? Good look again. And finally getting that block connected with your local hoster? Hmm, even more luck required. And we didn't talk about costs yet.

If anyone knows of a European web hoster offering and supporting that, I would like to know.

Kind regards,
R.

[jtara]

I guess things have changed. 1994 was the first time I worked for a company that had their own Internet connection, and I set it up. It was a given at the time that you would have your own IPs. And you needed them, as NAT was unheard of. So, I applied for a C block. (Which I think was still free.) Our first Internet connection was via bonded ISDN! (later DSL).

Our local ISP had no trouble figuring out how to route our C block, as they'd done it already for many customers.

I'd think that, even today, any data center has to deal with customers who bring their own IPs.

You may be right. I'm tainted by my early experience where this was the norm, and by currently hosting in a datacenter with a PNAP and 30 carriers.

[lammert]

Another possibility is to rent a server in a Chinese data center and set it up as a reverse proxy to your European server. With the proper DNS setup, Chinese users will be connected to the reverse proxy instead of the European server. If the proxy uses some sort of caching, it might give the speed impression of a locally installed server.

Some things to think about:

Your main site must be suitable for caching. Otherwise all traffic for Chinese visitors is first routed through the proxy, then to Europe and via the proxy back to the visitors. This gives significant delays.

Furthermore I guess the Chinese government will not be excited about proxy servers on their mainland which tunnel traffic from other continents to their citizens.