How to find the IP address of a website and where it is hosted
To find the IP address of a website, type its domain name (for example wikipedia.org) into the box, click Check Host and read the results. The tool resolves the name to an IP address through DNS, then asks six GeoIP databases where that IP is located. The whole check takes three steps:
- Enter a domain name such as example.com, or an IPv4 address.
- Click Check Host.
- Read the IP address, then compare the country and city each source reports.
Wikipedia is a good first test. In one of our lookups, wikipedia.org resolved to 208.80.153.224. The ARIN record places that address in the block 208.80.152.0 to 208.80.155.255, registered to Wikimedia, which runs its own network (AS14907). Run the same lookup from another continent and you may get a different IP. According to Wikimedia's traffic routing documentation, its DNS servers use GeoIP to send each reader to roughly the nearest of its sites, which include Ashburn, Carrollton, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Singapore, Marseille and São Paulo.
What the check host results mean
The results answer two questions. The IP address tells you which machine (or which CDN edge) answers for the domain right now. The location columns tell you where each GeoIP database thinks that IP is used. To name the company that runs the server, you take the IP one step further.
The hostname to IP step reads the domain's DNS records. An A record holds an IPv4 address and an AAAA record holds an IPv6 address. Many large sites publish more than one. A lookup of cloudflare.com, for instance, returned two IPv4 addresses, 104.16.132.229 and 104.16.133.229. Sites do this to spread load across servers or to keep working when one address fails.
To learn who operates the network behind an address, look up the owner and whois record of that IP. The organization name and ASN in the registry record usually point to the hosting or cloud provider. An ASN registered to Amazon, Google, Hetzner or OVH means the site runs on that provider's servers.
Why six GeoIP sources disagree on a website server location
Each GeoIP provider builds its own map of IP addresses to places, from different inputs and on its own update schedule, so the same IP can land in two cities. Country results usually match. City results split more often, especially for cloud servers and for IP blocks that changed hands recently.
The inputs overlap but are never identical. Regional internet registries publish who holds each address block and the country on file. Network operators can publish geofeeds, small CSV files that map their own prefixes to a country, region and city, in the format defined by RFC 8805. Some providers add latency measurements, data from partners or corrections sent in by users. A cloud provider may register a block in Seattle and then use it in Frankfurt, and only the databases that picked up the geofeed or measured the latency will show Frankfurt.
Update speed is the other cause. Each provider publishes its own schedule:
| Source | Published update schedule |
|---|---|
| IPinfo.io | Most datasets, including geolocation, updated daily (IPinfo support center) |
| MaxMind GeoIP | GeoIP City every weekday; free GeoLite City every Tuesday and Friday (MaxMind support) |
| IP2Location | Standard license released on the 1st and 15th of each month; daily for redistribution licenses (IP2Location FAQ) |
| IPGeolocation.io | API data updated daily (IPGeolocation.io FAQ) |
| DB-IP | Database downloads updated monthly, usually on the 1st (DB-IP FAQ) |
| Cloudflare | Database updated several times per week (Cloudflare developer docs) |
A block that moved last week can still show its old city in a monthly database and its new city in a daily one. So a maxmind geoip lookup and an ip2location lookup on the same address can both be correct for the day their data was built.
Read the six answers as a vote. When four or five sources name the same city, trust that city. When they split three against three, trust only the country. When even the country differs, the IP is probably anycast or recently reassigned, and the next section explains why. MaxMind's own GeoIP accuracy comparison measures city accuracy as the share of known IPs placed within a radius such as 50 km, and it says it cannot guarantee any future accuracy level. No GeoIP database knows a street address.
Websites behind Cloudflare or a CDN
When a website uses Cloudflare or another CDN, DNS returns the CDN's IP addresses, not the origin server's. Check Host then reports where that CDN IP is located, not where the website's files and database live. The origin server stays out of public DNS by design.
The cloudflare.com addresses above fall in the range 104.16.0.0 to 104.31.255.255, which ARIN lists under the network name CLOUDFLARENET. Any domain that resolves into that range is proxied by Cloudflare. Many CDNs, Cloudflare included, also use anycast: the same IP is announced from many data centers, and each visitor's traffic goes to the nearest one. One anycast IP has no single location, so each GeoIP database picks one place for it, and the six results can scatter across several countries.
This page does not try to find the origin IP behind a CDN, since hiding it protects sites from direct attacks. If you own the site, your origin IP is listed in your hosting control panel and in the DNS settings of your CDN account.
Check host vs ping and uptime checks
This check host tool answers where a website's IP points and where that IP is located. It does not test whether the site is online from many countries, which is what multi-node services such as check-host.net or uptime monitors do. For reachability, use a different test.
To measure how long packets take to reach a server, test latency to the host with ping. To see whether a web server accepts connections at all, check whether ports 80 and 443 are open on its IP. A site can resolve here and still be down. It can also resolve and still be blocked by your provider, as with the Steam block in Vietnam.
When to check where a website is hosted
Run a domain IP lookup whenever you need to know which server a domain points to right now: after a hosting move, before trusting an unfamiliar shop, or when a site loads slowly for your visitors. These cases come up most often:
- After changing hosting or DNS: check that the domain now resolves to the new server's IP. If it still shows the old IP, the DNS change has not reached the resolver used for the lookup yet.
- Speed and SEO: a server on another continent from your main audience adds round-trip time to every request, and that shows up in time to first byte (TTFB). A Vietnamese news site served from a US data center without a CDN is a typical case.
- Suspicious sites: for a shop or login page you reached from an unexpected email, look at where the server is and see if the server IP is on a spam blacklist. A "local" bank page served from a cheap VPS abroad is a warning sign.
- Competitor research: the IP and its ASN show which cloud or hosting provider a competitor uses and whether they put a CDN in front.
Frequently asked questions
How can I tell who hosts a website?
Check the website's IP here, then run a whois lookup on that IP. The organization and ASN in the registry record name the network that holds the address, which is usually the hosting or cloud provider. If the IP belongs to Cloudflare or another CDN, the record names the CDN, and the actual host stays hidden.
Why does the checker show Cloudflare instead of the real host?
The site uses Cloudflare as a reverse proxy. Its DNS records point to Cloudflare's IPs, Cloudflare receives every request and fetches content from the origin server in the background. Any public lookup, from any tool, sees only the Cloudflare side. Only the site owner can see the origin address in their account.
How accurate is website server location?
Country is right in most cases for a server with a fixed IP. City is less reliable, and the six sources often disagree for cloud and CDN addresses. Treat a city named by four or more sources as likely, and treat a split result as country-level only. For anycast IPs, no single location exists to measure.
Is the hosting provider the same as the domain registrar?
Not necessarily. The registrar is the company where the domain name was bought, such as Namecheap or GoDaddy. The hosting provider runs the server that the domain's DNS points to. One company can do both, but many sites register a domain in one place, host it in another and use a third company for DNS.
Can I check an IP address instead of a domain?
Yes. Paste an IPv4 address into the box and the tool skips the DNS step and goes straight to the six GeoIP sources. Use this when you already have an address from a server log or an email header. If you are new to the topic, start with what an IP address is and how it is assigned.
Is it legal to check where a website is hosted?
Yes. DNS records are public by design, since every browser needs them to load a site, and GeoIP data is sold and published openly. Looking up a domain's IP and its location reveals the same information your browser uses on every visit. Using it to attack or harass someone is a separate act and illegal.