Have you ever wanted to know which web hosting service any website is using?
Recently, a user asked us how to find who is hosting their website. It is a common question asked by beginners who hired someone to set up their website initially.
You might also want to find out who is hosting your competitor’s website. In this article, we’re going to show you how to find out who is hosting a certain website (using two methods).
Why Find Out Who is Hosting a Website?
All websites on the internet need web hosting. This is where all the files for a website are stored.
Website hosting is different than a domain name. A domain name is the address of a website, e.g. wpbeginner.com.
Finding out who is hosting a website is not that difficult because this information is publicly available.
There are several scenarios when you may need to find out the website hosting service behind a website.
- A WordPress developer built a website for you. They forgot to tell you who the web host is, or you lost the details.
- You set up your WordPress website a long time ago. You can’t remember who is hosting it.
- You’ve seen a website that is fast and performs well. You want to know who the host is so you can use their services too.
- Another website is stealing your content, and you want to send a DMCA takedown notice to their host.
There are multiple ways to find out who is hosting a website. We’ll show you the two easiest ways to quickly find out which hosting company is used by a website.
Method 1. Use the WPBeginner Theme Detector Tool
Our WordPress Theme Detector tool is a great way to detect what WordPress theme a site is using. It also tells you who is hosting a website.
To use it, simply go to the WordPress Theme Detector Tool page and type in the URL (domain name) of the site:
Click on the ‘Analyze Website’ button to continue.
In just a couple of seconds, you will see details about the website. This includes the name of the hosting provider:
Here are some names you may see coming up:
- Unified Layer: EIG (Endurance International Group) hosts these sites. EIG is the company behind Bluehost and HostGator. They also own several other smaller web hosting brands.
- New Dream Network, LLC: DreamHost
- Media Temple: Media Temple is a web hosting company owned by GoDaddy
In some cases, the theme detector may not be able to tell you the host. For instance, when a website is using a CDN service or a website firewall.
These services route all website traffic through their own servers which means all hosting detector tools will show them as the hosting provider.
One popular CDN service is Cloudflare. They offer a free CDN service which is used by many websites.
You may also see Sucuri, which is a website security and firewall service with their own CDN servers.
For instance, If you look up wpbeginner.com using the theme detector tool, then it will show Sucuri as the hosting provider.
We do use Sucuri for our firewall, but WPBeginner is hosted by SiteGround.
If the theme detector isn’t giving you a clear answer, then the second method in this guide can help. It will show you how to dig deeper to find the real hosting company behind a website.
Method #2: Using WHOIS Tools to Find Who is Hosting a Website
Another way to find out a website’s host is to look at their WHOIS information. WHOIS is like a public directory. It lets you look up ‘who is’ responsible for a website.
What is Whois Information?
Most domain names on the internet are managed by a global organization called ICANN. They keep a public directory of all website data which also includes information about where a website may be hosted.
This is publicly available information, and there are many tools you can use to lookup whois information on any website on the internet.
First, you need to go to WHOis.net. Then, simply type in the URL of the website to look it up. You will see a list of information, starting with the domain name:
You just need to look for a ‘Name Server’ entry. This lets you know who is hosting the site:
In this case, the host is Dreamhost. To find out what web host the nameserver relates to, simply search for the nameserver on Google.
Again, you may not always be able to find out the host information. The nameservers may be set for a CDN instead, such as Cloudflare.
Other Ways to Find a Website’s Host
These methods are a little more time-consuming. However, they are worth trying if you are unable to find the host using the above quick methods.
For your own website, you could check your billing records. You have likely been billed for the hosting.
You could also contact whoever set up your website. If you aren’t able to contact them, then check through any information they have sent you in the past.
Finding out who hosts someone else’s website can be harder.
First, you could search the website for information about the web host. This might be on the About page or in the footer. For instance, the WPBeginner footer shows that our site is hosted by SiteGround:
If you still can’t find any information, then you could contact the website owner or editor.
You will normally find a contact form on most websites that you can use to reach out. Explain that you like their website and that you wondered who is hosting it.
We hope this article helped you learn how to find out who is hosting a certain website. If you need help finding a great hosting service, then check out our guide on how to choose the best WordPress hosting service, and our comparison of the best WooCommerce hosting companies.
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The post How to Find Out Who is Hosting a Certain Website (2 Ways) appeared first on WPBeginner.
Source: WPBeginner