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What Is a Hop?

A hop is a single step in the journey data takes across the internet. When you send a request from your device, that data rarely travels directly to its destination. Instead, it passes through a series of intermediate devices, typically routers, before arriving. Each transfer from one device to the next counts as one hop.

The total number of hops a packet takes is called the hop count. A lower hop count generally means a more direct path, while a higher hop count can introduce more opportunities for delay. This is one reason why latency increases when data has to travel through many intermediate points.

Network diagnostics tools like traceroute map out each hop along a route, showing the IP address of every device the data passes through and how long each leg of the journey takes. This makes hop analysis useful for identifying where slowdowns or failures are occurring in a network path.