How to find out where a website is hosted

You usually need this in order to move a website when access to the old hosting account has been lost, or someone else used to look after it. You can identify the hosting in two steps: find the website’s IP address, then see whose network it belongs to.

1. The website’s IP address

dig +short example.co.uk A

On Windows, use nslookup example.co.uk; the address is on the Address line after the website’s name.

2. Whose network it is

Enter the address in our lookup tool. The network owner field will show the hosting company or data centre where the server is located — for example, the name of the host or of its legal entity. For more on what an address can tell you, see How to find out who owns an IP address.

If the website is behind protection or a CDN

If the network owner is Cloudflare or another CDN or attack-protection service, the website is hidden behind that protection. Only the website’s owner knows the server’s real address: it is shown in the protection service’s control panel. You can’t find it out from outside — that is by design.

Where DNS and email are hosted

A website, its DNS and its email can each be hosted in a different place — that is normal.

• DNS — the nserver field in the domain lookup. It also shows the domain’s registrar and the date until which the domain is paid for.
• Email — the MX record: dig +short MX example.co.uk. The name of the mail server in the answer shows which company handles the email. For more, see MX record.

The website is yours, but you have no access

Contact the support team of the hosting company you found: you can usually regain access to the account by proving that it is yours. If the domain isn’t registered to you either, start with that — see Domain owner. Once you have access, you can move the website: How to move your website to us.