Trying to work out more about a website or individual’s IP address? the question you need to ask is, how to do a reverse DNS lookup. Some people call it a reverse IP lookup, but less frequently.
You can access any website through its domain name, as they are already widely known. But did you know you can also access websites through their IP addresses?
What is a IP Address Lookup And How To Do It?
What is an IP Address?
Before we can go any further, you need to understand what an IP actually is. For those more seasoned in this field, you can skip this paragraph.
An IP is a unique set of addresses assigned to every website individually. It also helps identify a device on the internet or any local network. The complete form of the term IP is “Internet Protocol”. It refers to some particular rules or protocols used to govern the format of data sent through a local network or the internet. It’s pretty much a phone number, but for machines.
In simpler words, IP addresses act as identifiers and are used to send information from one device connected to a network to another. IP addresses contain information about the location of the website. They also make it easy for one to communicate with the other. IP addresses give different websites, routers, and computers a unique identity that differentiates them. IP lookup can be easily carried out through the help of robust IP lookup websites on the internet; there is no rocket science there indeed.
Performing a Reverse Lookup
Reverse IP lookup, otherwise known as reverse DNS, refers to the process of searching the DNS (Domain Name System). It helps find the specific domain name related to an IP address.
IP reverse lookup helps determines the domain name of any given IP address. It is also sometimes used to find websites, networks, or computers’ IP addresses. Reverse IP lookup is similar to IP lookup that provides around 1,000 domains hosted on a single IP, containing all the most common ccTLD and gTLD domains. It is carried out when people conduct extensive research containing all the IPs available on a single domain, which can be up to 1000 at a time.
Reverse IP lookup is considered to be a handy tool that you can use for multiple different business applications. You can also use it to identify and track down all the websites being hosted on the same domain as yours. It also lets you track down all the phishing and scamming websites on your domain and stay clear of them.
Types of IP Addresses
When you study IP addresses in-depth, you will find out there are several different types of them. Furthermore, there are also subdivisions in each category. Here are some of the types of IP addresses:
Consumer IP Addresses
If you are a business or an individual who requires an internet service plan, you must have either a private or a public IP address. By private or public, it means the location of the network. Private IP addresses are inside the networks, whereas public IP addresses are outside the networks.
Private IP Addresses
Every device or computer that is connected to an internet network inside your house possesses a private IP address. This could be anything from computers, tablets, smartphones, or even devices enabled by Bluetooth like smart TVs, printers, or speakers. With several devices connected to your router inside your home, it needs an identifier to differentiate between each one of them or routers. This is what the private IP addresses are used for. They differentiate each and every device connected to the router from one another.
Public IP Addresses
On the contrary, a public address is assigned to your complete network of devices, i.e., the router. Every single device connected to the router has its own private IP address for differentiation. Whereas the router itself has a primary IP address as its IP address on the top. The IP addresses assigned to every router are done so by an ISP (Internet service provider). ISPs are in possession of a massive pool of IP addresses that they distribute among their customers. A public IP address is used for all the devices outside the network to identify that network, i.e., your router’s IP address.
Dynamic IP Addresses:
- Dynamic IP addresses are the ones that regularly change, and that too on an automated basis. When ISPs assign one IP address to any customer, it is changed to another one after a while and rotated for another customer in the line. This allows ISPs to cut down costs of new IP addresses for every customer and allows efficient use throughout. All of this assigning and reassigning IP addresses to customers is done in an automated manner. It eliminates the need to redo IP address assigning actions all over again in any case. For example, if a customer is changing homes, they will automatically be assigned a new IP address. Regularly changing IP addresses is also beneficial for security as it steers away from any hacker from interfering in your network.
Static IP Addresses:
- On the other hand, static IP addresses are the contrary. Unlike dynamic IP addresses, static ones stay constant throughout the years. Upon an IP address being assigned to a customer once, it does not change until and unless they buy another one. Static IP addresses are typically not needed by many businesses and individuals. But it becomes necessary for a business that desires to host its personal server. This is better for websites that need to be found on the internet with the exact identification throughout the years.
Website IP Address
When we are talking about websites, it is inevitable to talk about types of website IP addresses as well. These website IP addresses are for those website owners who need web hosting packages because they don’t host their own servers. This is, in actuality, the case with more than half of the websites worldwide. There are two following types of website IP addresses:
- Shared IP Addresses
If your website relies on web hosting services, it is more likely that it will be shared with many others on the same hosting server. This is primarily the case for websites that do not hold many pages, have manageable incoming traffic, and work as independent websites. Such websites, shared on a single web hosting server, will have shared IP addresses.
- Dedicated IP Addresses
On the other hand, some websites choose to pay for a dedicated or separate web hosting server that is not shared with other websites. In such cases, obtaining an SSL certificate becomes easier than usual and allows individual File Transfer Protocol servers as a result. A website that is run on a dedicated web hosting server will have a dedicated IP address and be different and separate from others. It gives a website its own separate IP address other than a shared domain name that has many websites on it.
Websites Offering IP Address Lookups
As mentioned above, doing an IP lookup is not as difficult as it must seem, so isn’t how to find someone by IP address. If you want to find someone by an IP address, you can quickly head over to Google and search for an IP address locator. By entering your desired IP address in the search bar, you can get the information easily and quickly.
Finding someone by an IP address is straightforward and efficient. With IP locators, you can find it more efficiently. Here in this article, where we have covered everything about how to do an IP lookup and how to find someone by IP address to what IP addresses are – we will cover this information for you as well.
Here are some of the best IP address locator websites you can use to get information about your desired IP address from anywhere possible:
- SolarWinds
- WhatIsMY IPAddress
- DNS Checker
- GestioIP
- Domain IP Lookup – by Small SEO tools
- IP Checker
How to do an IP Address Lookup
Now that you have all the information about IP addresses, do you know how to do an IP lookup? We will teach you how with simple steps. The answer to how to do an IP lookup is not any rocket science; instead, it can be efficiently done through some simple steps.
If your router or any website has a public IP address, you can find it by just going on the Google search engine. You can search it with a simple question, ‘what is my IP address?’ You will get your results on the top of the first page in no time.
Once you have searched for information, you will see an IP address lookup every time any website owner searches for their IP address. This is because it is a public address and is available to all. If you want to further search for a website’s location or ISP, head on to an IP locater website and search for one manually.
The search results will only give you an approximate location of your searched website or router instead of giving you the exact pin location. Although, don’t forget to log out of your VPN while you are searching for ISPs of an IP address. You may also need to show a search warrant to the ISP if you want to search for a public IP address’s exact physical location. So doing anything without a search warrant can be illegal, and you must protect yourself from it.
Here is how to do an IP lookup on different platforms:
On Windows Platform:
- Take help from the command prompt
- Using the search bar of Windows, look for “cmd” excluding the quotes
- Finally, to discover the information, there will be a pop-up box after searching in the Windows bar. Type “ipconfig” without the quote marks
On MAC Platform:
- Head to Mac’s System Preferences
- The information will be available for you once you select the option network on it
On iPhone Platform:
- Head to the ‘Settings’ app of the phone
- Select the option of ‘WiFi’ in ‘Settings’, and right next to the network you are on, click on the circle () “i”
- You can find the IP address available for you there under the tab of the DHCP
Go check the router settings for IP addresses of other devices connected to your network. The way of accessing the router settings will depend on which brand of software you are currently using or if it has any issues.
Typically, all it takes is to type the router’s gateway’s IP address into the browser’s search engine, and you can easily access the internet. Once you are in there, you can check the information under the “attached devices” option. This section will display all the information of the attached devices to the network, along with their IP address.
Conclusion
All in all, the IP address lookup tool greatly helps you detect, trace, and track any public and current IP addresses all over the world.
These IP lookup tools are widely used as they can reveal some most confidential and valuable information about any website. Hence, you must keep your website’s information hidden and private in the case of any chance of a privacy breach.
Although, on the flip side, it is not that difficult to find someone by IP address in this tech-savvy and advanced era.
