Questions about your IP address
The live lookup is on the home page.
What is a public IP address?
It is the address your network presents to the internet. When you open a site, the reply has to be sent back somewhere. That somewhere, for everyone on your current connection, is the public address shown here. It identifies a network, not a person, though a network used by one household can be a strong hint.
Why is this different from 192.168.x.x?
192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, and 172.16.x.x through 172.31.x.x are private ranges. Your router hands them out indoors so the laptop and the printer can find each other. They are not routed on the public internet. The address on the home page is the one outside the router.
Why don't I see an IPv6 address?
The IPv6 lookup uses a service that answers over IPv6 when your network offers it. If you only see IPv4, this path did not use IPv6. A VPN, a mobile carrier, or an older router can cause that. The site still works.
How exact is the location?
Databases map an address block to a city, region, and a pair of coordinates. Those coordinates are often a data centre, an ISP office, or a rough city pin. They are regularly wrong at street level. This page never asks the browser for GPS. If you need a precise fix, an IP lookup is the wrong tool.
I use a VPN. What will this show?
The VPN's exit. Websites see that exit too, which is why the VPN changes what this page prints. Turn the VPN off and check again if you want the address your ISP assigned. Turn it back on afterwards.
Do you store or sell my IP address?
No history is kept by this website, and addresses are not sold. A lookup still has to be seen by the service that answers it. Those services are named in the privacy notice. Your host's ordinary web logs will also see that you opened this site, the same way any host sees a page view.
Why does the address change sometimes?
Many home connections are given a new public address every so often. Switching from home Wi-Fi to a phone hotspot always changes it. IPv6 privacy extensions rotate the address a single device shows, so two checks an hour apart need not match even if you have not moved.
Can a website see this same address?
Yes. It is not a secret from the sites you visit. They need it to answer you. What they should not see is the private address of a single device behind your router. A site also does not learn your name from the number alone, though it can guess the ISP and a rough area.
What is the difference between IPv4 and IPv6?
IPv4 has about four billion addresses, which is not enough, so providers share them. An IPv4 address is four numbers separated by dots. IPv6 is much longer, uses colons, and was designed so devices need not share. During the long overlap, a network can have one, the other, or both.