An IP API is a powerful way for websites and app owners can get their visitors’ location information. There are a lot of IP APIs worldwide that users can integrate into applications and use the real-time location data for customizing the user experience. However, it is important to invest in the right API to satisfy your requirements. This article will discuss the ten signs that tell you that your chosen IP API is not serving you as expected, and you should move on to a better IP API.
Table of Contents
1. Can’t It Properly Find The Real IP Address?
The accuracy of the location data retrieved by your IP API is the first thing your need to be watchful about. Because if it does not return the real IP address of the user, your product customizations can drastically fail. To provide the proper IP, API providers must constantly update their database with the most up-to-date IP information. Therefore, you do not need to worry about updating your local database. In addition, to provide the real IP address, the API should be able to cover as many unique locations as possible. Hence, if you see that your customizations are not working for the users, it is a sign that you need to move on to a better IP API.
2. Doesn’t Your IP API Provide More Details About The User?
Today’s apps cannot rely just on the IP location of the user. The more details it provides, the more customizations and features you can offer your customers. Check what information your IP API can retrieve and whether those data satisfies your needs. A better IP API provides not only basic information like location, currency, and timezone but also useful information like ASN, the hostname of the ISP of the user, and even the risks and threats that can originate from IP addresses. Do you have to rely on two or more IP APIs to get all the information you want? Then better move on to an API that provides all that information in a single API call.
3. Doesn’t It Work 24 Hours? Is It Down Sometimes?
Resilient APIs are important for you to provide uninterrupted services to your customers. If your customer base spans all the locations of the world, having access to the API 24 hours is a must because customers are in different time zones. If your IP API cannot provide information for 24 hours or is down most of the time, it can significantly impact your website offerings. Always check if the API guarantees high availability. That means, even if an outage happens on their side, they need to quickly recover from it and provide uninterrupted access to their data.
4. Can’t You Reach Their Technical Support 24 Hours?
Any API is subject to issues at any time. Especially if you encounter an issue in your IP API in production, you need to reach their technical support as quickly as possible. If you cannot reach their support within 24 hours, your application can be at a huge risk of losing customers. Hence, check if your IPs’ technical support has that facility. Check if they have 24 hours chat, call options, or email options so that you do not have to worry about facing issues. If not, better move on to an API that provides this facility.
5. Are Their Technical Support Unable To Fix Technical Issues?
Lets’ say your IP API team does have 24 hours support. But if they cannot fix the technical issue you face, your investment will be wasted, and you can run into huge losses in your business. Also, the time it takes to resolve the issue is an important fact you need to check. Do they take a long time to fix the issue, or are they quicker in solving most cases? The API provider needs to have a dedicated team of experts in the API who can solve any issue within a minimum amount of time.
6. Doesn’t It Provide Either JSON Or XML Format?
The tech stack you use in your applications can support different message formats. JSON and XML are the major messaging formats that pass information from the IP to your application. If your application requires JSON or XML, the IP API must accommodate your requirements. If not, you will have to rely on other third-party libraries for parsing the API response data. Thus, not having support for JSON or XML is a sign that you need to move on to an API that supports JSON or XML format.
7. Can’t You Find Endpoints Properly From Their Documentation?
Before integrating your IP API into your application, you should know information like the endpoints available, which one you should call, parameters, API key generation, etc. Usually, if the API has a proper documentation, you can easily and quickly get to know that information and start work without any delay. Suppose you cannot find even such critical pieces of information and have to search through the web to find them. In that case, it is a sign that you should avoid such IP APIs and find one with proper documentation.
8. Do You Have Troubles Using It With Several Programming Languages?
Different applications use different programming languages. Suppose the IP API supports only a particular or a few programming languages. In that case, your application will have to switch to that language. But it is easy if you move on to an IP API that supports several programming languages, so you do not need to worry about compatibility with your application.
9. Can’t Your IP API Handle The Number Of API Requests You Expect Daily?
Based on your customer base, look at how many requests your API can handle per month based on your customer base. Do their packages provide the expected number of requests per day? Is that package affordable to your budget? Move on to an IP API that can handle 100 to million daily requests.
10. Is It Taking Too Much Time To Retrieve The Data?
Last but not least, the efficiency of the API is another critical sign you need to be aware of. If it takes more time to retrieve the data than you expect, it is a sign that tells you to look for another with a better retrieval time.
Why Should You Use ipstack?
An IP API is an essential API for today’s applications. As discussed in this article, you must be aware of the signs that tell you that your choice is not good enough and that it is better to switch to a better IP API like the ipstack IP API. the ipstack is a trusted API that eliminates all the above signs we discussed. It is an accurate IP API that supports both IPV4 and IPV6 data. Users can get useful information from it, such as location, continent code, currency, timezone, hostname, the ISP the visitor belongs to, risks and threats from IP addresses, etc. It supports both XML and JSON. Also, its world-class documentation makes it easier for users to get started.
Get started with ipstack and build trouble-free applications!
