Each Web site on the Internet has at least one Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to it. Knowing a Web site's IP address can be useful for in several situations:
- to bypass website blocking tools
- to block specific sites (such as when administering a home network)
- to help narrow down a Web site's geographic location
Finding these addresses can be complicated. They are not automatically shown in Web browsers.
Larger Web sites use a pool of IP addresses rather than just one, meaning that the address being used one day might change the next. Two people in different parts of the world will often obtain different IP addresses for the same site even if they use the same lookup methods.
Using Ping
The ping utility can be used to look up Web site (and any other kind of running network device) IP addresses.
Ping attempts to contact the Web site by name and will report back the IP address it finds. For example, to find the IP address of about.com on a computer, entering the command
ping about.com
will return a result similar to the following that contains the IP address:
Pinging about.com [207.241.148.80] with 32 bytes of data: . . .
Both the Google Play and Apple App Store contain many apps that perform these equivalent ping functions on mobile devices.
Note that many larger Web sites do not return full replies to ping commands, but the site IP address can usually still be obtained. The ping method will fail if the Web site is temporarily unreachable or if the computer used to perform the ping is not connected to the Internet.
Using The Internet WHOIS System
An alternative method to find Web site IP addresses relies on the Internet WHOIS system. WHOIS is a database that tracks registration information for Web sites including the owner and IP address.
To look up Web site IP addresses with WHOIS, simply visit one of the many public sites (like whois.net or networksolutions.com) that offer WHOIS database query services.
Searching for a particular site name like about.com, for example, produces a result similar to the following:
Current Registrar: REGISTER.COM, INC.
IP Address: 207.241.148.80 (ARIN & RIPE IP search) . . .
In the WHOIS method, note that the IP addresses are stored statically in a database and thus do not require the Web site actually be online or reachable over the Internet.
Using IP Address Lists
Popular Web sites have their IP address information published and available through standard Web searches.
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