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TraceThatIP

Popular IPs

Popular IP addresses

Geolocation and network data for some of the internet's most searched and well-known IP addresses, from major DNS providers and CDNs to tech giants and the private addresses on your own network.

Public DNS servers

Resolvers you can point any device or router at.

Tech giants

Web front doors for the biggest platforms.

Cloud & CDNs

CDN edges and hosting platforms.

Private & special addresses

Reserved ranges, never routed on the internet.

Background

Why are these IP addresses so popular?

The internet has over 4 billion IPv4 addresses, but a very small fraction of them handle a huge share of global web traffic. These popular IPs generally belong to the infrastructure providers that form the backbone of the internet. When you trace them, you are usually looking at data centres and routing equipment rather than individual personal computers.

People look these addresses up for network troubleshooting, firewall configuration, security auditing, or simply out of curiosity when reading their traffic logs. Knowing who owns them helps you tell legitimate background internet noise apart from potential security threats.

Infrastructure

The three types of infrastructure IPs

Public DNS resolvers

IPs like 8.8.8.8 (Google) and 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare) act as the internet's phonebook. Millions of devices are configured to send their DNS queries to these addresses because they offer faster responses, better privacy or malware filtering compared with default ISP servers.

Content delivery networks

IPs owned by Cloudflare, Fastly and Akamai serve cached copies of websites. When you visit a site you often aren't connecting to its origin server at all, but to a CDN edge node physically near you. This cuts latency and shields the origin from DDoS attacks.

Hyperscale cloud providers

IPs owned by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud host a vast number of the internet's applications. A connection to an AWS IP in your firewall logs could be a legitimate app updating itself, or any server hosted in the cloud.

Reserved ranges

Private and special addresses

The addresses in the private list above aren't owned by any company. They come from blocks reserved for local use: 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12 and 192.168.0.0/16 for private networks (RFC 1918), 127.0.0.0/8 for loopback and 169.254.0.0/16 for link-local addressing (RFC 3927).

Because they are never routed on the public internet, the same router address, such as 192.168.1.1, can be used on home networks all over the world. Traffic sent to 127.0.0.1 never leaves your device, and a 169.254.x.x address usually means a device couldn't get an address from DHCP.

Learn more in our guide to public vs private IP addresses, or work out the size of any block with the Subnet Calculator.

Check any IP address

Notice an unfamiliar IP address in your router logs? Trace its approximate location, identify the ISP that owns it, and see whether it belongs to a tech company or a residential broadband connection.

Cloud

Understanding cloud provider IP ranges

AWS, Azure and Google Cloud each publish their IP address ranges publicly. These ranges contain millions of addresses used by cloud-hosted applications, APIs and services. When you see an unfamiliar IP in your server logs, checking whether it falls within a known cloud range is one of the first steps in investigating where it came from.

For example, AWS publishes its full list at ip-ranges.amazonaws.com. If you trace an IP like 52.94.236.248, you will see it belongs to Amazon. But that only tells you the infrastructure owner: the application running on it could be anything from a legitimate SaaS product to a bot.

Use our DNS Lookup tool to check which domains point to these cloud IPs, and the Subnet Calculator to understand the size and boundaries of the blocks they own. For a deeper dive, read how DNS works.

FAQ

Questions about popular IPs

Can't find what you need? Get in touch.

Why is Google's IP address 8.8.8.8?

Google chose the 8.8.8.8 IPv4 address because it is extremely easy for people to remember. It launched Google Public DNS in 2009 as a faster, more secure alternative to ISP DNS servers, and the memorable address was a strategic choice to drive adoption. Today it handles over a trillion queries per day.

Are these IPs safe to connect to?

The public addresses listed on this page belong to some of the largest and most reputable technology companies in the world. However, if you see connections to cloud provider IPs (like AWS or Azure) in your firewall logs, remember that anyone can rent a server there. The IP block may be owned by Amazon, but the server itself could be controlled by any third party.

Will the location of these IPs always be accurate?

Not always. Companies like Cloudflare and Google use Anycast routing, which lets the exact same IP address (like 1.1.1.1) be served from data centres all over the world. When you ping 1.1.1.1, BGP routing sends you to the nearest data centre, even though our IP Lookup tool might show the company's headquarters.

What is Anycast vs Unicast?

Unicast is the traditional one-to-one model: one IP address maps to one physical server. Anycast is one-to-many: one IP address is advertised by multiple servers around the globe, and BGP routing automatically directs each user to the closest one. DNS resolvers (like 8.8.8.8) and CDNs rely heavily on Anycast to reduce latency.

How do I configure my router to use these DNS servers?

Log into your router's admin panel (usually at 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1) and find the DNS settings. Replace the ISP-provided DNS addresses with your preferred public DNS, for example Primary 1.1.1.1 and Secondary 1.0.0.1 for Cloudflare DNS. All devices on your network will then start using the new resolver.

What is 192.168.1.1?

192.168.1.1 is a private address from the 192.168.0.0/16 block (RFC 1918). Many home routers use it as their default gateway and admin page address. It only exists inside your local network, so it can't be reached from the internet and has no public location or ISP. Read more about public vs private IP addresses.

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