About targeting geographic locations

The Google Ads system uses a number of factors to determine someone’s physical location and whether to show your ad. When possible, we determine physical location based on someone's computer or mobile device location, or other methods.

• IP address:

  Location is typically based on the Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is a unique number assigned by Internet Service Providers to each computer connected to the Internet.

  If a device is connected to a Wi-Fi network, we may detect the Wi-Fi network's IP address to determine physical location. If a mobile device is connected to a mobile carrier's proxy server, we may use the carrier IP to determine the device's location.

• Device location:

  Depending on a user's location settings, we may be able to use a precise location for advertising, based on one of these sources of location data:

  • GPS: Accuracy varies depending on GPS signal and connection.
  • Wi-Fi: Accuracy should be similar to the access range of a typical Wi-Fi router.
  • Bluetooth: If Bluetooth and/or Bluetooth scanning are enabled on a device, a publicly broadcast Bluetooth signal can provide an accurate indication of location
  • Google's cell ID (cell tower) location database: Used in the absence of Wi-Fi or GPS. Accuracy is dependent on how many cell towers are located within an area and available data, and some devices don't support cell ID location.

If the Google Ads system detects geographic areas that someone has shown interest in, we may show appropriate ads targeted to that area or surrounding areas (known as "location of interest").

Some of the ways that we might detect a location of interest are based on:

• Terms used in searches that indicate a location.
• Past searches that indicated a location of interest.
• A person’s past physical locations.
• The content and context of a website where an ad is displayed. Keep in mind that the mention of a location on a page doesn't always indicate an interest in that location.
• Searches on Google Maps or Google Maps for Mobile.
• If someone sets a custom location for Google search results.

On the Google Display Network, we may infer a location associated with a page or site when we believe it will be useful for targeting your ads. A location mentioned on a page may not always indicate interest in that location. For example, someone who is reading news about San Francisco isn’t necessarily interested in ads for San Francisco florists. Similarly, we might infer an interest in a location, even if that location isn't specifically mentioned on a page, but the context of the entire site indicates an interest in that place.

Location of interest isn't restricted to a person's country, or the Google search domain the person is searching on. For example, if someone in Paris, France searches for Los Angeles taxi on google.fr (France), we may still identify Los Angeles as a location they're interested in.