IP Lookup

An IP Lookup Tool retrieves geographic and network information associated with an IP address: the country, region, city, and ISP (Internet Service Provider) that the IP is registered to, along with technical details like the IP type (residential, hosting, mobile) and the AS (Autonomous System) number that controls the IP range.

What is an IP address?

An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a numerical label assigned to every device connected to a network. IPv4 addresses are 32-bit numbers written as four groups of digits separated by dots (e.g., 192.168.1.1). IPv6 addresses are 128-bit numbers in hexadecimal (e.g., 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334). Your device's public IP address is assigned by your ISP and represents your household or organisation's connection point to the internet.

What IP geolocation can and cannot tell you

IP geolocation databases (like MaxMind GeoIP2 or ip-api) map IP addresses to physical locations based on registration data, network routing, and user-reported data. The accuracy varies significantly:

• Country-level accuracy: ~99% accurate for most IPs
• City-level accuracy: Typically accurate to the city for ~80% of IPs; may point to the ISP's hub city rather than the user's actual city
• Residential IPs: Often geolocated accurately to neighbourhood or suburb level
• VPN/proxy IPs: Geolocated to the VPN server's location, not the user's actual location
• Mobile IPs: May point to the mobile carrier's central routing location rather than the device's current city

Practical use cases

Debugging connectivity issues: Verifying that a VPN is routing traffic through the expected exit node, or confirming that a CDN is serving content from the expected geographic edge location.

Security monitoring: Identifying unusual login attempts by checking whether the originating IP is in an unexpected country or matches a known datacenter range (which might indicate bot traffic).

Network troubleshooting: Determining which ISP or hosting provider controls an IP to direct support requests or trace network issues.

Ad fraud detection: Checking whether traffic from a campaign is coming from genuine residential IPs or from datacenter IPs that suggest bot traffic.

Content moderation: Understanding the geographic distribution of users or comment posters. The UtilsGo IP Lookup tool displays geolocation and ISP data for any IP address you enter.