Geocode Switch

Description

GeoSwitch is a plugin that allows you to change the content of your site based on the location of your client’s IP.
To geolocate users based on IP GeoSwitch supports can user either the new the new GeoIP2 MaxMind
databases or GeoIP2 Precision Service.
MaxMind offers free and paid geolocation databases and the paid GeoIP2 Precision web service,
the author of this plugin is not affiliated with MaxMind in any way.

The main development of this plugin is in github.
Please open a new issue if you find a bug in this plugin.

This plugin uses the MaxMind PHP library which is released under the
Apache License version 2.0

Usage

= GeoSwitch Conditional Blocks =

GeoSwitch uses two shortcodes [geoswitch] and [geoswitch_case] to create conditional blocks.
The [geoswitch] shortcode is used to enclose one or more [geoswitch_case] shortcodes with different conditions. The
[geoswitch_case] shortcodes enclose content that will be shown if the condition is true.
The following example illustrates a GeoSwitch conditional block that will show different contact information depending
on the user’s IP location:

[geoswitch]
[geoswitch_case country_code="AU" state_code="NSW"]New South Wales Office[/geoswitch_case]
[geoswitch_case country_code="AU"]Australian Office[/geoswitch_case]
[geoswitch_case]International Office[/geoswitch_case]
[/geoswitch]

The above GeoSwitch block will display “New South Wales Office” to users in New South Wales within Australia,
“Australian Office” to other Australian users and “International Office” to any other user.

The [geoswitch_case] shortcode accepts the following attributes:

• country – comma delimited list of country names
• country_code – comma delimited list of country ISO codes
• state – comma delimited list of of state names
• state_code – comma delimited list of state ISO codes
• city – comma delimited list of city names
• within, from – This set of attributes is used to test for distances. Within is the distance in kilometers or miles and
  from is the centre point represented as “latitude,longitude” in degrees (example [geoswitch within=”10” from=”-33.7167,151.6”]).

The [geoswitch_case] shortcode matches only the attributes specified so:

[geoswitch]
[geoswitch_case city="paris"]You are in Paris![/geoswitch_case]
[/geoswitch]

Will display “You are in Paris!” to any user with an IP location in a city named Paris, e.g Paris, France or Paris, Texas, USA.
A [geoswitch_case] shortcode without any attributes always matches and can be used as the last condition in a conditional block
to show default content.
Content between [geoswitch_case] blocks can contain any markup including any other shortcodes, but conditional blocks should
not be nested as this is not supported by WordPress.
Content between the [geoswitch] and [geoswitch_case] shortcodes should be whitespace but is usually ignored:

[geoswitch] *DON’T WRITE HERE*
[geoswitch_case]...[/geoswitch_case] *OR HERE*
[geoswitch_case]...[/geoswitch_case]
[/geoswitch]

Informational Shortcodes

In addition to the conditional block GeoSwitch offers the following shortcodes to display user information:

• [geoswitch_ip] – The user’s IP.
• [geoswitch_city] – The user’s city name.
• [geoswitch_state] – The user’s state name.
• [geoswitch_state_code] – The user’s state ISO code.
• [geoswitch_country] – The user’s country name.
• [geoswitch_country_code] – The user’s country code.

If the IP of the user cannot be geo located these shortcodes return ‘?’

Debug Shortcodes

• geoswitch_setip – Override the user IP. Affects shortcodes after this one.
  Usage:

  [geoswitch_case ip=’10.0.0.10′]

For debugging whole websites the user IP can be set globally in the admin settings for the plugin.

Filter Hooks

Geoswitch supports the following filter hooks:
geoswitch_skip_ip_check
Allows to programatically skip the ip check. If the hook callback function returns true the MaxMind libraries are not used to check the IP and the
default content (if configured) will be displayed.
Usage:

function skip_ip_callback( $skipCheck, $userIp ) {
    if ( some_custom_test($userIp) ) {
        $skipCheck = true;
    }
    return $skipChek;
}

add_filter( 'geoswitch_skip_ip_check', 'skip_ip_callback', 10, 2 );

Installation

Prerequisites

The Geoswitch plugin uses either MaxMind’s city database or webservice.

• To use a local database for geocoding you’ll need either the free GeoLite2 city database
  (download from here) or obtain a license from MaxMind
  for a GeoIP2 citydatabase. After obtaining the database uncompress it before installation.
• To use the webservice you’ll need to obtain a user ID and license key for GeoIP2 Precision Services.

Installation

1. Copy the Plugin directory to your wordpress plugins directory (usually wp-content/plugins)
2. Optionally copy your MaxMind binary database to the database subdirectory inside the plugin root direcory (GeoSwitch/database).
   The database should be uncompressed.
3. In the WordPress administration settings search for the GeoSwitch configuration page:
4. Select the type of geocoding service to use (local database or webservice).
5. Enter the name of the database or the user ID and license key depending on the service you’ve selected.
6. Set the units to use for distance calculations (kilometer or miles).

Note: if you use the local database you should update it periodically.

FAQ

Installation Instructions

Prerequisites

The Geoswitch plugin uses either MaxMind’s city database or webservice.

• To use a local database for geocoding you’ll need either the free GeoLite2 city database
  (download from here) or obtain a license from MaxMind
  for a GeoIP2 citydatabase. After obtaining the database uncompress it before installation.
• To use the webservice you’ll need to obtain a user ID and license key for GeoIP2 Precision Services.

Installation

1. Copy the Plugin directory to your wordpress plugins directory (usually wp-content/plugins)
2. Optionally copy your MaxMind binary database to the database subdirectory inside the plugin root direcory (GeoSwitch/database).
   The database should be uncompressed.
3. In the WordPress administration settings search for the GeoSwitch configuration page:
4. Select the type of geocoding service to use (local database or webservice).
5. Enter the name of the database or the user ID and license key depending on the service you’ve selected.
6. Set the units to use for distance calculations (kilometer or miles).

Note: if you use the local database you should update it periodically.

Why do I see only question marks instead of my location?

Your IP was not found in the database. The most usual cause if that your browser and server are behind a NAT and you are
getting a private IP not a public one. For debugging purposes you can set the IP used by plug-in in the settings page.

My location is wrong/partial. How come?

Geolocation using IP addresses is not entirely accurate. The geolocation relies on a static database of addresses and
their approximate location, not exact location like mobile GPS.
To ensure maximum accuracy make sure you have the latest database. Purchasing the non-lite version of the database from MaxMind
or a license for their service may also yield better information.
I am not affiliated in any way with MaxMind, so it is up to you to contact them and evaluate their offers for suitability to your purposes.

How do I test other locations?

You can set the IP used in by the plug-in in the settings page and use Google to search for IPs in the location you are interested
in (i.e. IP in California) or use the geoswitch_setip shortcode.
Debug overrides for other setting are coming.

Reviews

Excellent

JayBird October 10, 2017

Provides everything you need to make geo-specific content for your website. I’ve tried all the rest. This is the fastest, easiest and has the biggest impact.

Solved a nasty problem for me

ldblake September 23, 2017

I run a mixed public/private site where, for legal reasons, we need to restrict access to one province in Canada. (The law is different in other provinces). This is the first plugin that even came close to solving the problem for us. I simply wrapped my front end registration and login pages in the shortcodes and away it went! So long as it keeps working this nicely I’ll give it 4 stars. For the 5th star, add automatic data base updates.

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

1.1.4

• Bug fix: Private and reserved IPs are not checked and no longer generate
• Added filter hook geoswitch_skip_ip_check to bypass the ip check based on
  (Thanks to Arūnas Liuiza from arunas.co for the BugFix and filter hook)

1.1.3

Bug fix: when IP cannot be found plugin correctly evaluates all cases and uses default empty case (if it exists), instead of not displaying anything.
Implemented support for comma separated values in geoswitch_case shortcode. Previous version mentioned this feature in the Readme file, but it was not actually implemented.

1.1.2

Error deploying to wordpress. Use version 1.1.3 instead.

1.1.1

Added setting to for user IP for debugging purposes and updated MaxMind Libraries.

1.1.0

• Added support for MaxMind GeoIP2 Precision Service (thanks to Paul Scarrone
  and carlcapozza).
• Fixed bug with measurement units. Units were always considered kilometers.
• Tested under WordPress 4.1.

1.0.0

• Initial release