How to Find Out Who Is Hosting a Website by IP Address

Not all websites are created equal. Some may inspire you with their design and content and their high user traffic. You may feel compelled to build your own website and host it with the inspirational site’s provider. Others may include misinformation or plagiarism, and you want to see the website taken down.

In both of these examples, you’ll need to locate the website’s host provider. There are several ways to take this step. However, one of the easiest ways to find a website’s host provider is by IP address. So, how do you locate a host via IP address? Let’s take a look.

What is a host provider?

You may think, “This is great information, but what in the world is a host provider? It sounds like a parasitic creature from a science fiction film.” In reality, host providers offer website owners vital site-building tools and allow sites to get clicks and views. Unlike its sci-fi counterpart, a website host provider isn’t a malevolent monster and is typically a force for good. 

According to Google, a website host provider offers services to websites such as web design and storage space and allows a website to go live on the Internet. Some examples of popular website host providers include:

• Blue Host: WordPress users may find this works for their blogs, etc. Offers a free domain name, a free SSL (the certificate that verifies your website), and a free CDN (Content Delivery Network).

• Dream Host: A host provider for commerce sites. Offers coaching and 24:7 support.

• Go Daddy: One of the more well-known host providers. Your website and some web application tools are free, but you will have to pay for your domain name.

• Hostwinds: This host provider centers mostly on business websites. Hostwinds offers dedicated servers, Cloud servers, VPS hosting (Virtual Private Server), and Web hosting.
• Interserver: Interserver accepts crypto payments and offers a guide for those building their first websites.

How do I find my web host provider?

In order to find a web host, you need to determine what tools and premium services you’ll need to make your website successful. Research the most popular web host providers to discern which suits your needs.

There are some free web host providers, but they may only offer limited services. Some of the most popular free web hosts include:

• AwardSpace: AwardSpace offers 24:7 support, subdomain usage, a website builder, and 1GB of free storage.

• Freehostia: This website hosting provider allows you to build up to five websites and 250MB free storage.

• Google Cloud Hosting: The first year of this service is free, with a yearly contract offered to extend web hosting services. Google Cloud Hosting offers support documentation and unlimited cloud storage. You just need a Google account to get started.

Why do I need a web host?

A web host allows you to store your website online, which means it’s always accessible to viewers. If you try to go live with your website sans a host provider, your website has no home, and only you will be able to view it. After you’ve worked hard on content for the world to see, you need to find a home for it — you need a host.

You could attempt to purchase the necessary tools to act as your own host, but this will prove extremely costly and may leave you feeling overwhelmed. A web host provider gives you access to many of the tools you’ll need in order to build an exceptional website and see traffic driven your way.

Do I need a dedicated IP for web hosting?

Most website hosts do offer dedicated IP addresses for their clients. But is a dedicated IP necessary for a hosted website? The short answer is no, but it certainly helps. A dedicated IP address means that a specific IP is assigned to your website and won’t reflect or expose your personal IP address.

By offering a dedicated IP, host providers offer access to dedicated servers as well. This means you’ll have full access to the resources and tools of the provider. If you use a web host for multiple sites, you can use this IP address for them all. However, many host providers also offer shared IP addresses which may include a variety of accounts on their platform.

How to search for a host provider by IP address

However, a website’s host provider isn’t always readily apparent on the site itself. You may need to find a host provider for a variety of reasons, so how can you conduct your search? You can plug the website’s URL into specific host domains, but this is time-consuming and may not yield results.

If a site uses WordPress and you can discern what version of WordPress they use, you might be able to figure out the provider through this information. Again, this could take hours and turn out to be a waste of time. Or, you can search for a host provider by plugging in the website’s IP address.

What Is My IP Address can help

To find your own website host provider (in case you’ve forgotten), Google suggests the following steps:

• Look up your billing records and find your host provider via your domain name charge
• Utilize ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) by entering your domain name to look up your host.

If you want an easier, one-step method or to find another website’s host provider, discern the website’s IP address by executing the ping command or entering a site’s IPv4 or IPv6 into the lookup search bar of What is My IP Address.

Your results will include the IP address and the website’s host provider under ISP and Organization. For example, if a website is hosted by GoDaddy, both the ISP and Organization listed will reflect this. 

At What is My IP Address, we also offer a pretty great tool that works the opposite way: The Host Name tool allows you to discover an IP address by plugging in a website’s host provider. It can be particularly useful when analyzing IP datagrams. Check out our blog for vital online security measures and other great technological information.