How to Find Out a Website's IP Address

Every website you visit has an IP address sitting behind it — a numerical label that identifies the server hosting that site. Most of the time, your browser handles this lookup invisibly. But there are plenty of legitimate reasons to want that number yourself: diagnosing connection problems, verifying DNS changes, investigating email headers, or simply understanding how the internet works under the hood.

The good news is that finding a website's IP address is straightforward. The method you use — and what you do with the result — depends on your operating system, your technical comfort level, and what you're actually trying to accomplish.

What Is a Website's IP Address?

When you type a domain name like example.com into your browser, a Domain Name System (DNS) server translates it into an IP address — something like 93.184.216.34. That numeric address points to the physical or virtual server where the website's files live.

IP addresses come in two formats:

Some websites share an IP address with dozens or hundreds of other sites (a setup called shared hosting). Others sit on dedicated IPs. Large platforms like Google or Cloudflare route traffic through many IPs depending on your location — so the IP you find may not be the only one, or even a permanent one.

Method 1: Using the Ping Command 🖥️

The ping command is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It sends a small packet to a server and returns the IP address in the process.

On Windows:

1. Open Command Prompt (search for cmd)
2. Type: ping example.com
3. The IP address appears in brackets next to the domain name

On macOS or Linux:

1. Open Terminal
2. Type: ping example.com
3. Look for the IP address in the first line of output

The result gives you the IPv4 address the domain resolves to from your current network location. Keep in mind that if the site uses a CDN (Content Delivery Network) like Cloudflare or Akamai, the IP you see may belong to the CDN's edge server — not the origin server where the site's files actually live.

Method 2: Using the NSLookup Command

nslookup (name server lookup) is a more targeted tool for querying DNS records directly.

On any operating system with a terminal:

nslookup example.com 

The output shows both the DNS server used for the query and the resolved IP address (or addresses) for the domain. Unlike ping, nslookup doesn't send data to the destination — it only queries DNS. This makes it useful when you want DNS information without triggering any network traffic to the actual server.

You can also query a specific DNS server to see how a domain resolves from a different perspective:

nslookup example.com 8.8.8.8 

This asks Google's public DNS server (8.8.8.8) for the answer instead of your ISP's default.

Method 3: Online IP Lookup Tools 🔍

If you'd rather skip the command line entirely, several web-based tools do the same job in a browser:

• whatismyipaddress.com — includes a "IP Lookup" tab for domains
• mxtoolbox.com — DNS lookup with detailed record breakdowns
• whois.domaintools.com — combines IP lookup with WHOIS registration data
• dnschecker.org — useful for checking how a domain resolves from multiple global locations simultaneously

These tools are particularly helpful when you want to verify whether DNS propagation has completed after a domain change. Because DNS updates can take time to spread across servers worldwide, different locations may see different IP addresses during a transition period.

Method 4: Checking Browser Developer Tools

Modern browsers expose network information directly. In Chrome, Firefox, or Edge:

1. Press F12 to open Developer Tools
2. Go to the Network tab
3. Load or refresh the page
4. Click on the main document request (usually the first item)
5. Look for the Remote Address field in the Headers section

This shows the IP address your browser actually connected to — which may differ from what ping returns if the site uses load balancing or geographic routing.

Why the IP You Find May Not Tell the Whole Story

Several factors affect what IP address you see and what it represents:

CDNs and load balancers — Major websites distribute traffic across many servers. The IP you get is often just one node in a larger network.

Shared hosting — One IP might serve hundreds of unrelated websites. An IP lookup alone won't tell you which site is the "primary" tenant.

Dynamic IPs — Some hosting setups change IPs periodically, meaning the address you find today might not be valid next week.

Geolocation routing — Large platforms (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) return different IPs depending on where in the world your query originates.

HTTPS and proxy layers — If a site sits behind a reverse proxy or DDoS protection service, the visible IP belongs to the protection layer, not the underlying server.

What the Results Actually Mean for You

Finding the raw IP is the easy part. What that number tells you — and what you can do with it — varies considerably based on your goal. Diagnosing a DNS propagation issue looks different from investigating a server's geographic location, which looks different from troubleshooting a blocked connection on a corporate network.

The method that gets you the most useful answer depends on what you're actually trying to solve, which network environment you're working in, and how deep into the technical layer you need to go.