Geocoding is the process of converting an address into geographic coordinates. These addresses can be actual street addresses, which can be geocoded with various tools such as the Google maps geocoding API (https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/intro). IP addresses can be, and often are, geocoded by various applications to determine where computers, and their users, are located. A very common and valuable use is analyzing web server logs to determine the source of users of your website.
This is possible because an IP address does not only represent an address of the computer in terms of being able to communicate with that computer, but often can also be converted into an approximate physical location by looking it up in IP address / location databases. There are many of these databases available, all of which are maintained by various...