How to Find the IP Address of a Domain — Step-by-Step

You want to know which IP address a domain like example.com resolves to. It takes 30 seconds — either through our tool or via the command line. This guide shows both paths plus the common pitfalls (CDNs, round-robin, IPv4 vs. IPv6).

Quick answer

1. Open the DNS Lookup, enter the domain.
2. The A record shows the IPv4 address, the AAAA record the IPv6 address.
3. Optionally: paste that IP into the IP location lookup to identify the host and region.

That's it. The rest of this article explains why some domains return several IPs, how to do this from the command line, and when you additionally need a Whois lookup.

What does "the IP address of a domain" actually mean?

A domain like example.com is just a name — the actual traffic flows to an IP address. The mapping between domain and IP is provided by the Domain Name System (DNS). When your browser visits example.com, it first asks a DNS server: "what IP address does this domain have?" The answer is called an A record (for IPv4) or AAAA record (for IPv6). More background in our article DNS Explained.

Step 1 — DNS lookup

Enter the domain into our DNS Lookup. The tool shows all relevant records:

If example.com has a CNAME (typical for www.example.com → example.com), follow the chain: resolve the target hostname separately.

Step 2 — Who operates this IP?

Once you have the IP, paste it into the IP location lookup. You'll learn:

• Country + city + region of the datacentre
• ASN + host name (e.g. AS16509 Amazon AWS, AS24940 Hetzner, AS13335 Cloudflare)
• Reverse-DNS hostname (sometimes meaningful like ec2-3-218-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com)

This answers "where is this domain hosted?" — useful before a server migration, abuse report or hosting comparison.

Step 3 — Whois (optional)

If you want to know who owns the domain (registrar, owner contact, expiry date), use the Whois lookup. Note: since GDPR, personal data in Whois responses is usually masked, but registrar, dates and nameservers are always visible.

Variant: command line

If you prefer the terminal:

# Linux/macOS — IPv4
dig example.com A +short

# Linux/macOS — IPv6
dig example.com AAAA +short

# Windows
nslookup example.com

# With explicit resolver (e.g. Cloudflare 1.1.1.1)
dig @1.1.1.1 example.com A

dig and nslookup are available on virtually every system. Our API returns the same data as JSON:

curl https://meine-ip.info/api/dns/example.com

Why do I sometimes see multiple IPs?

That's the norm for large sites. Three common reasons:

1. Round-robin DNS: multiple A records per domain. The DNS server returns them in rotating order — primitive load balancing.
2. Content Delivery Network (CDN): Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly & co. return different IPs depending on where the request originates. A German query sees a different IP than a US query.
3. GeoDNS: similar to CDN but self-hosted. Large corporations route users to the geographically nearest datacentre.

Meaning: the IP you see is not necessarily the IP others see. For a deterministic answer, query authoritative nameservers directly:

dig +trace example.com A

Why the IP of mail servers is often different

If you want to know which server a domain receives mail through, don't look at the A record — look at the MX record. Example:

example.com.    MX    10 mail.example.com.
example.com.    A     93.184.216.34
mail.example.com. A   93.184.216.36

The domain web page runs on 93.184.216.34, the mail server on 93.184.216.36. For a mail-server blacklist check, use the mail IP — the web IP is useless. Detailed: Blacklist Check plus How to Remove Your IP from a Blacklist.

Frequently asked questions

Why does looking up localhost give me my own IP? localhost is by convention 127.0.0.1 (or ::1 for IPv6) and always points to your own machine. Use the full hostname of any external domain instead.

How current are DNS answers? DNS records are served with a TTL (Time To Live) — typically 300 to 86400 seconds. Until the TTL expires, resolvers cache the answer. After a recent server migration, you may still see the old IP. Testing with a different resolver (dig @1.1.1.1) helps cross-check.

How do I find the IP of subdomains like api.example.com? Exactly the same way — the DNS lookup accepts subdomains too. Enter api.example.com, the A record shows the IP. Subdomains often have their own IPs, e.g. when API and website run on separate servers.

What if the domain has a CNAME? Follow the chain. Example: www.example.com is a CNAME to example.com. Resolve example.com separately — that's where the A record sits.

Does this work for internal corporate domains? No. Our tool queries public DNS resolvers. Internal hostnames like intranet.company.local are only resolvable from within the corporate network.

Related tools at a glance

• DNS Lookup — all DNS records of a domain
• IP Location — geolocation, host, ASN
• Whois Lookup — domain owner, registrar, dates
• Blacklist Check — check IP reputation (e.g. for mail IPs)