AM Every time you open a website, your request arrives from an IP address, and the site sends its answer back to that address. The box at the top of this page shows the address our server saw for your visit, whether it is IPv4 or IPv6, the country it most likely belongs to, and the browser and operating system your device identified itself as.
Nothing is stored. The address is read from your request, shown to you and not logged or saved.
What the tool shows
- Public IP address. The address your traffic appears to come from on the internet.
- IP version. IPv4 looks like 203.0.113.42. IPv6 looks like 2001:db8:85a3::8a2e:370:7334.
- Approximate country. Looked up from IP geolocation data. It shows where the network is registered or routed, not where you are sitting.
- Browser and operating system. Read from the user agent string your browser sends with every request. This has nothing to do with the IP address.
Modern browsers deliberately report less detail in the user agent. Chrome, for example, reports a frozen version string, and Windows 11 still appears as Windows 10 in it. If the version shown looks older than yours, that is the reason.
Public vs private IP addresses
Your devices at home or in an office do not each get a public address. The router gets one public IP from your provider and hands out private addresses to phones, laptops and printers on the local network. When a device connects to the internet, the router translates its private address to the shared public one (this is called NAT). That is why every device on the same Wi-Fi shows the same address on this page.
Private IPv4 addresses come from three reserved ranges: 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255, 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255 and 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255. If your computer's network settings show one of those, that is your private address, not the one websites see. Many mobile and some home providers add another layer called carrier-grade NAT, using the 100.64.0.0/10 range, so hundreds of customers can share one public address.
IPv4 vs IPv6
| IPv4 | IPv6 | |
|---|---|---|
| Address length | 32 bits | 128 bits |
| Written as | Four numbers, 0 to 255, separated by dots | Eight groups of hexadecimal, separated by colons |
| Total addresses | About 4.3 billion | About 3.4 x 1038 |
| Shared addresses | Common, through NAT | Usually not needed |
| Private ranges | 10/8, 172.16/12, 192.168/16 | fc00::/7 (unique local) |
IPv4 addresses ran out years ago, which is why NAT and address sharing are so common. IPv6 has enough addresses for every device to have its own. Most connections today support both, and your browser picks one. If this page shows IPv6, your provider supports it; if you see IPv4, the connection or network uses IPv4 for this site.
What a website can and cannot tell from your IP
| A site can usually tell | A site cannot tell from the IP alone |
|---|---|
| Your country, often correctly | Your name or email |
| A rough region or city, less reliably | Your street address |
| Your internet provider or network owner | Your browsing history on other sites |
| Whether the address belongs to a data center or known VPN | Which person in a household made the request |
Only your internet provider can link an IP address and a time to a specific customer account, and it normally discloses that only under legal process. Websites use IP location for currency, language and shipping defaults, for fraud checks at checkout, and to block traffic from abusive networks.
VPNs, proxies and Private Relay
A VPN sends your traffic through a server run by the VPN provider, so websites see the VPN server's IP and location instead of yours. Apple's iCloud Private Relay does something similar in Safari. To check that a VPN is working:
- With the VPN off, load this page and note the IP and country.
- Turn the VPN on and choose a server in another country.
- Reload this page. The IP should change and the country should match the server you picked.
- If the IP changes but the country does not, the geolocation database may simply map that server to another place. Try another server.
- If the IP does not change at all, the VPN is not routing browser traffic. Check its settings.
Note: A VPN hides your IP from websites, but it does not make you anonymous. Logged-in accounts, cookies and browser fingerprints still identify you.
Why store owners and marketers check their IP
Search results, ads and store prices change with location. A seller in one country looking at Google results for "plumber near me" in another sees the wrong results unless the search is localized. That matters for local SEO work, where results are tied to the city being searched. AM Jarvis Local Lead Finder Pro lets you pick the country, city and niche for a Google Maps search, then scores the businesses it finds and audits their websites. The local SEO leads guide explains how agencies use those lists.
Your IP is also what you add to allowlists for admin panels, what support teams ask for when a firewall blocks you, and what explains why a store shows you the wrong currency. For checks on a domain rather than your own connection, use the WHOIS lookup or the redirect checker.