MacOS location services are TERRIBLE compared to Windows

Without WiFi how would you expect Apple/the Mac to know your location?

even if your router does not have WiFi, to my knowledge location services would use the location of wifi networks "visible" to the Mac.

Did your iMac ever have wifi on?

Did you allow that website to use your actual location? If not, it will use your IP address to estimate a location based on the registration information for your ISP. The website must specifically ask you if you want to allow it access to your actual location.

Also, with Monterey, your IP address is obfuscated to increase privacy. That will really throw the website off.

As mentioned already, the actual location must be established through Wi-Fi access point triangulation. If it is off, you won't get an actual location as the Mac has no cellular connection nor a GPS receiver.

TBade wrote:

I don't have WiFI turned on, since I am about 2 feet away from my router and Ethernet is sooo much faster.

Wi-Fi has to be enabled.

Have you tried turning on WiFi while continuing to use ethernet? Your connection will use the faster one, but the WiFi may enable a better location.

dialabrain wrote:

FWIW, the user actually had Wi-Fi disabled which as I mentioned above, is a no-no.

That’s why I stated, “As already mentioned…”

But if it knows and can send the information though the WiFi connection to the MacOS, it would be silly to think this same information could not be sent using the ethernet connection.

That's not how it works.

You don't have to use Wi-Fi, but it will use it to find known access point locations that it can "see" around you. The access point itself doesn't know where it is, either. Nor does your router.

macOS looks at the relative intensity and direction of all the Wi-Fi signals it can see and uses a central database of the AP locations to triangulate your position.

In Windows, you can enter a location which it will use. However, behind my corporate firewall, that doesn't even work.

Microsoft essentially uses the same technology: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-location-service-and-privacy-3a8eee0a-5b0b-dc07-eede-2a5ca1c49088

Apple used to use SkyHook, but they now maintain their own list collected via iDevices with other location capabilities like GPS, Cellular, and some other things.

FWIW, the user actually had Wi-Fi disabled which as I mentioned above, is a no-no.

To my knowledge for Location services Apple uses the recorded location of nearby wifi access points. The access points are identified by their unique MAC address. Apple gets the location for GPS from iPhones and maybe iPads with cellular/GPS.

Are you using a a wifi access point to connect to?

Do you have an iPhone or similar Apple device that would have provided location data and access point address to Apple to use for location services database?

One reported problem reported in the past was that if you purchased a used wifi access point, your location would be based on the previous physical of the access point until Apple database gets updated.

No one has found a way to directly get Apple's database update.

Here is what Apple says:

"Location Services uses GPS and Bluetooth (where those are available) along with crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations to determine your device’s approximate location."

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/location-services/

TBade wrote:

(The other link brought be to the stores in the nearby state. even though I had selected the local store.) That was frustrating.

Remember, this is a user-to-user support forum. No one here knows what is on your computer, what links you are clicking on, etc. So if you do have a specific link that generates a specific result, please include it in your post. Maybe it is the generic link. That's fine, but then we know it is the generic link and not some specific link that returns a very specific result.

iCloud Private Relay is another great example that I hadn't even thought about. This gets harder and harder every day.

One thing you can try is checking your location in Apple Maps. Does it put you into the other state? If so, then there is some deep confusion about your location that is specific to Apple's Core Location APIs and services. Sometimes I've seen people where this is true. But if Apple Maps is correct, then the problem is likely somewhere between your web browser and the web server. You said that you weren't using iCloud Private Relay, which is great (because it isn't very good!), but, are you using any other kind of third party "security" or "networking" software? And speaking of Apple's Core Location APIs, can you confirm that System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Location Services is enabled for both the system and Safari?

But wait! You didn't say anything about Safari. What web browser are you using?

I am not sure where you got the gaming site thought from. I was mentioned. booting my iMac into Windows OS using BootCamp, and using a browser on the Windows side. I did mention that I use the BootCamp Windows partition only for gaming. Mainly to point out that I don't give Windows OS any personal information like address, contacts, phone numbers, and so forth.

Sorry, you mentioned "for gaming" and I was just trying to highlight the differences between Apple's web site and any other. Speaking of "any other", there are plenty of other web sites that will do nothing but run a geolocation on your IP address and tell you where they think you are located. Different web sites may use different services. None of them are 100% accurate. The crazy thing is that this is absolutely critical for anyone having a business on the internet. The customer's location is critical for providing accurate information about pricing, taxes, consumer laws, etc. Some apps are flat out illegal in certain countries, for certain people. It's really wild. And it can be difficult to compare Apple's web site with other sites because Apple's web sites are totally unique in this respect. You always have to scroll to the bottom and make sure you are on the correct Apple site for your country. People in the US probably don't notice this. Everyone else in the world at some point thinks, "hey, those prices aren't so bad...no wait...gotta change the country...<sob>".

To clarify, you don’t have to be using the WiFi for your networking. It just has to be turned on. For most people, this is extremely accurate. I remember once a few years ago I was driving through rural Wisconsin with a 1st generation iPad. I didn’t have GPS or even cell phone service (no roaming agreement with my Canadian phone). Yet my iPad was able to track our location quite accurately.

That being said, I have seen a few people here on the forums with the other extreme. Something about their local WiFi networks makes the system think they are thousands of miles away. It usually works. When it does, it can be magical. When it doesn’t work, it can be hilarious and frustrating.

Web sites can subscribe to one of a number of services that lookup your address from a big database of internet-facing IP addresses cross-referenced by local ISPs. They can also use client-side JavaScript that uses a system-provided service. So the same web site could have different results based what operating system you are using. It isn’t clear from your question if you were doing that. You describe comparing setting up a local appointment at an Apple store with some unrelated gaming web site. This could be explained by something as simple as there being no available appointments at your local stores.

TBade wrote:

To answer your question, when I boot into Windows using BootCamp, I also do not have WiFi turned on. However, when I go to a web site, it somehow manages to find locations near my home and not where the server farm is. This is very much different from what happens when I boot into MacOS.

That’s because macOS now hides your true IP address for privacy. I find it quite entertaining seeing the random locations stupid websites think I am located.