How to Find Out Who
Hosts a Web Site
(Web Hosting
Company)
Here’s a quick little tip for
anyone looking for a simple
way to find out who is
hosting a particular
website . Trying to figure
out who hosts a web site can
be an annoying task if
you’re trying to go through
the usual channels by
searching a WHOIS
database, etc. A lot of times
you’ll only get the company
or person that registered
the domain name, but not the
actual hosting company.
Who is Hosting This? is a
very simple web service
whose sole purpose is to tell
you the company that is
hosting a website. I really
like this because most of the
other online web site
checking tools simply do not
give a clear and concise
answer to this very simple
question.
I came across this website
because I was looking for a
for better hosting company,
but I first wanted to know
what hosting companies some
peer sites in my field were
using, such as HowToGeek,
Labnol.org, etc. I know those
sites run smoothly and have
millions of visitors every
month, so if their servers
can handle that traffic, I
would be more inclined to go
with one of those hosting
companies.
Once you type in a domain
name, for example,
labnol.org, you’ll get your
answer right away:
DreamHost is actually the
hosting company for the
Digital Inspiration website.
I’ve tried it on a good
number of sites and the
results have been correct
each time. Also, very large
sites like Google.com, etc. will
not give you any useful
information because they
have their own IP address
ranges and use their own
servers. You’ll also see this
for other companies like
CNET, etc because they
manage all of their own
hosting.
In addition to websites like
Google and Facebook, you
may also run into smaller
websites that use private
registration or extra privacy
settings at their hosting
company. When a domain is
private, the information is
hidden from public view and
you’ll only see information
about the company that is
being used to hide the
registration or nothing at all,
like in the example below:
This site does a pretty good
job because you can
sometimes tell the hosting
company by looking at the
Name Servers, but here
they are simply using the
domain name and not the
name of the hosting website.
Even if you click on the
WHOIS link, everything is
privately registered.
If you try to look up the IP
address, you will have more
luck. Once I did a WHOIS
lookup on the IP address, I
was able to determine the
hosting company. You can
also try another website like
WebHostingHero. Their site
was able to give me the
correct info.
That’s about it! Overall, you
should really run into very
few issues when trying to
determine the hosting