IP Lookup
IP Lookup helps you get detailed information about an ip address, for routing analysis, ownership checks, and faster network troubleshooting.
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Technical Analysis & Guide
What It Does
IP Lookup provides detailed information about an IP address including geographic location, hosting provider, ASN (Autonomous System Number), and network details.
Why It Matters
- →Security Analysis: Identify suspicious IP addresses and their origin
- →Geotargeting: Understand where your traffic is coming from
- →Network Troubleshooting: Diagnose connectivity issues
- →Fraud Prevention: Detect mismatches between claimed and actual locations
How to Read Results
- Country/City: Physical location of the IP address
- ISP/Organization: Who owns or operates the IP block
- ASN: Unique identifier for the network
- Type: Residential, datacenter, mobile, etc.
Technical Background
Every public IP address traces back to a delegation chain. IANA hands large blocks to the five Regional Internet Registries (ARIN, RIPE NCC, APNIC, LACNIC and AFRINIC), which allocate them to ISPs, hosting companies and enterprises, sometimes through national or local registries. The holder then announces its prefixes to the rest of the internet with BGP from an Autonomous System, identified by an ASN (RFC 1930; 32-bit ASNs per RFC 6793). That is why an IP lookup shows an 'AS' value such as AS15169 next to the organization name: it identifies the network that routes the address, which may differ from the end customer actually using it.
Geolocation is not part of any protocol. Nothing in an IP packet says where a device is. Commercial databases infer location from registry records, ISP-published geofeeds (a simple CSV format defined in RFC 8805, discoverable through the geofeed attribute described in RFC 9632), latency measurements from many vantage points, Wi-Fi and mobile data contributed by apps, and manual corrections. Country-level accuracy is typically very high for fixed networks, while city-level results can be off by tens or hundreds of kilometres, especially for mobile carriers, satellite links and corporate networks that backhaul traffic to a central gateway. The latitude and longitude returned are usually the centre of a city or region, not a street address.
Several address ranges never appear in geolocation data because they are not globally routable. RFC 1918 reserves 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12 and 192.168.0.0/16 for private networks, RFC 6598 sets aside 100.64.0.0/10 for carrier-grade NAT, and the IANA special-purpose registry (RFC 6890) lists loopback, link-local, documentation and multicast ranges. Carrier-grade NAT also means one public IPv4 address may represent thousands of mobile subscribers at once, which is critical context when deciding whether to block an address.
This tool sends the address to a geolocation API and returns the country, region, city, postal code, coordinates and time zone, plus the ISP, organization and AS string. It also reports three boolean flags: proxy (known VPN, proxy or anonymizer exit), mobile (cellular carrier range) and hosting (data-centre or cloud space). Any of these flags turns the result into a warning, not because they are malicious, but because they change how much the location can be trusted. A hosting flag on an address claiming to be a home user, for instance, is a classic fraud signal, while the same flag on a webhook source is entirely expected.
For authoritative ownership data and abuse contacts, pair this result with a WHOIS or RDAP query against the responsible RIR, and with a reverse DNS lookup, which often reveals the hostname pattern an ISP assigns to its customers.
Common Errors and How to Fix Them
- ProblemThe city and coordinates are treated as the visitor's exact address, for example in a support dispute or a police report.
- FixCoordinates are an estimate, usually the centre of a city or region. Use them only for country or regional decisions, and rely on the ISP's subscriber records, obtainable only through legal process, for anything tied to a person.
- ProblemYour company's new IP range still geolocates to the country of its previous holder, and customers get the wrong language or are blocked by geo-restrictions.
- FixPublish a geofeed (RFC 8805) listing your prefixes with country, region and city, reference it from the RIR record with the geofeed attribute (RFC 9632), and submit correction requests to the major geolocation databases.
- ProblemA lookup of 192.168.1.10, 10.0.0.5 or 100.64.3.2 returns no location.
- FixThese are private or carrier-grade NAT addresses that exist only inside a network. Look up the public egress address instead, which you can see on any 'what is my IP' page from the same network.
- ProblemA sign-up form rejects every address flagged as hosting or proxy, locking out employees behind corporate VPNs and users of privacy relays.
- FixTreat the flags as risk signals combined with other evidence such as velocity, device fingerprint or payment checks, rather than as a hard block.
- ProblemThe ISP field shows a cloud provider and it is assumed that the provider is the attacker.
- FixCloud and hosting addresses are rented by thousands of customers. Report abuse to the provider's abuse contact, found through WHOIS/RDAP, which can identify the customer behind the instance.
- ProblemA single abusive mobile address is banned and hundreds of legitimate users on the same carrier lose access.
- FixWhen the mobile flag is set, the address is probably shared through carrier-grade NAT. Prefer account-level or session-level rate limits over IP bans for mobile ranges.
Frequently Asked Questions
How accurate is IP geolocation?
For fixed broadband, the country is right in the vast majority of cases and the region usually is too. City-level accuracy is much weaker and can miss by a hundred kilometres or more, particularly on mobile networks, satellite internet and enterprise links routed through a distant headquarters. Treat the coordinates as an approximate area rather than a precise point.
Why does my own IP show a city I am not in?
Your ISP may route customer traffic through a regional hub, the address block may have been reassigned recently, or the database may still reflect the previous holder. Mobile carriers often geolocate entire regions to one gateway city. The ISP can fix this by publishing an RFC 8805 geofeed, and most geolocation vendors also accept correction requests.
Can an IP lookup identify a specific person?
No. It identifies the network that holds the address and an approximate location. Linking an IP and timestamp to a subscriber requires the ISP's internal assignment logs, which are disclosed only to authorities through legal process. With carrier-grade NAT, even the ISP needs the source port to tell subscribers apart.
What do the proxy, mobile and hosting flags mean?
Proxy indicates the address is a known VPN, open proxy or anonymity network exit. Mobile means it belongs to a cellular carrier range, usually shared through NAT. Hosting means it sits in data-centre or cloud space rather than a consumer ISP. The tool shows a warning whenever one is set, because each changes how reliable the location is for decisions.
What is the AS number shown in the result?
The Autonomous System Number identifies the network that announces this address to the internet through BGP. Thousands of addresses share an ASN, so it describes who routes the traffic, for example a national ISP or a cloud provider, rather than who uses the address. ASNs are handy for spotting traffic that comes from hosting networks.
Academic Documentation
Protocol context and primary references
REST API Documentation
v1.0GET /api/tools/ip-lookup
curl -X POST https://epcybertools.com/api/tools/ip-lookup \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"ip":"8.8.8.8"}'
{
"success": true,
"results": [
{ "test": "Sample Check", "status": "pass", "message": "All clear" }
]
}