Every website lives at a numeric IP address, even though you only ever type its name. Finding that address is genuinely useful — for troubleshooting a site that won't load, seeing where a server is located, identifying a hosting provider, or checking whether a site shares its server with others. The best part is that it takes seconds and needs no special skills. Here's how to find the IP address of any website using free tools, plus one important catch that trips a lot of people up.
What is a website's IP address?
Computers find each other by numbers, not names. When you visit a site, your device quietly translates its name (like example.com) into an IP address — a string such as 93.184.216.34 — and connects to that. This translation is the job of DNS; if you're curious how it works, our guide on what a DNS lookup is explains the full process.
There are two kinds of address you might find:
- IPv4 — the classic format, stored in a domain's A record (e.g.
93.184.216.34). - IPv6 — the newer, longer format, stored in an AAAA record.
Finding a website's IP simply means looking up those records.
The easiest way: a DNS records lookup
The simplest, no-software method is an online lookup. Enter the domain into our free DNS Records tool and read its A record (for IPv4) or AAAA record (for IPv6) — that's the website's IP address. It works from any device, no command line required, and shows every other record at the same time. Our guide on how to look up DNS records for any domain covers reading the full results.
Other ways to find a website's IP
If you'd rather use tools already on your computer:
Ping shows the IP as it tries to reach the site:
ping example.comThe address in brackets or after the domain name is the site's IP.
nslookup queries DNS directly:
nslookup example.comdig (macOS/Linux) gives clean output:
dig example.com +short
dig example.com AAAA +shortSwap example.com for the site you're checking. All of these return the same thing the online tool does — the IP the domain currently resolves to.
Why the IP you find might not be the "real" server
Here's the catch worth knowing: the IP you get isn't always the website's actual origin server. Many sites sit behind a CDN or security service like Cloudflare, Akamai, or Fastly. In that case, the IP you resolve belongs to the CDN's edge network, not the real server hosting the site — and that's deliberate. Routing through a CDN hides the origin's true address to protect it from attacks and to serve content faster from locations near each visitor.
So if you look up a domain and the IP traces back to Cloudflare or a similar provider, you've found the CDN, not the origin — and finding the true origin behind a CDN generally isn't possible (by design). For most purposes, the resolved IP is exactly what you need anyway.
What you can do with a website's IP
Once you have the IP, it opens up a few useful checks:
- Approximate location. An IP can be traced to the rough geographic region of the server or its host — useful for understanding where a site is served from.
- Identify the host or provider. A reverse lookup or a WHOIS on the IP often reveals the hosting company or network behind it. (Our guide to checking a domain's registration covers the WHOIS side.)
- Test reachability. Pinging the IP tells you whether the server responds at all, and a traceroute shows the network path your traffic takes to get there.
- Spot shared hosting. Many small sites share a single IP on the same server. If a lot of unrelated domains resolve to one address, that's shared hosting.
When you're finding an IP to troubleshoot
A common reason to look up a site's IP is because it won't load and you want to know whether the problem is DNS, the server, or your own connection. If the domain resolves to a valid IP but still won't open, the issue may be your local setup or the server itself — our guide on diagnosing why one website won't load walks through it. And to check quickly whether a site is down for everyone or just you, run it through our live website down checker, which resolves and connects to the site from our own servers.
The bottom line
Finding a website's IP address is quick and useful: look up the domain's A record (IPv4) or AAAA record (IPv6) with a free DNS Records tool, or use ping, nslookup, or dig from your own computer. Just remember that if a site hides behind a CDN like Cloudflare, the IP you find is the edge network rather than the true origin — which is exactly how it's meant to work. Either way, that number unlocks a whole set of handy checks, from locating a server to diagnosing why a site won't load.