What an IP lookup tells you
Every device on the internet is reachable through an IP address, and that address is not anonymous: it is assigned from a block that a regional registry handed to a company, and that company usually runs it in a known place. An IP lookup puts those public facts in one view. For any address you get an approximate location, the internet provider or organisation behind it, its autonomous system number (ASN), the registry record for the block it belongs to and its reverse DNS hostname.
Where the information comes from
Three separate sources are combined, and it helps to know which is which. The location and network owner come from a geolocation database, which is built from registry data, routing information and measurements. The registry record comes straight from the regional internet registry over RDAP, the modern JSON replacement for WHOIS. It shows the network name, the holder, the address range and when the block was allocated. The reverse DNS hostname is a record the owner may have published, and it often hints at what the address is used for, such as a mail server, a data centre or a customer line.
How accurate is the location?
Treat the location as a good guess at the city or region, not an address. Geolocation databases place an IP according to where the provider routes it, so a mobile or satellite connection can appear hundreds of kilometres away, and a VPN shows the server's location instead of yours. Nobody can find your house from an IP address alone; they would need your provider's customer records. Our guide on why an IP location is wrong explains the common causes.
Looking up a domain name
If you type a domain such as example.com, the tool first resolves it to its IP addresses, then shows details for the first one. This is useful for checking where a website is hosted, whether it sits behind a content delivery network or which company runs its servers. Remember that one domain can have many addresses and that large sites answer from different places depending on where you ask.
Private addresses have no public details
Addresses such as 192.168.1.1, 10.0.0.5 or 172.16.0.2 are private: they only work inside a local network, so there is nothing to look up. The same applies to loopback (127.0.0.1), link-local and carrier-grade NAT addresses (100.64.0.0 to 100.127.255.255). If you enter one, the tool tells you what kind it is. To understand the difference, read public vs private IP addresses.
Common uses
- Checking where a suspicious email, login alert or connection came from.
- Finding the abuse contact for a network that is sending spam or attacks.
- Confirming that a VPN exit shows the country you chose.
- Seeing which hosting company or ISP a website or server uses.
Last reviewed 2026-10-28. Found a mistake? Report a correction (how we handle them).