How to Convert a URL to IP Address

Updated on August 4, 2022

There are various reasons for wanting to convert a URL to an IP address. This is a pretty simple process, and there are multiple ways to perform the conversion. In this post, we'll go over everything you need to know about the methods available to convert a URL to an IP address, explain the reasons for converting them, and more.

What is a URL?

A URL, also known as a Uniform Resource Locator, is used to provide humans with an easy to remember website name that can be quickly entered into a web browser. The terms URL and URI are often used interchangeably; however certain differences exist between both. Learn more about the differences between URI vs URL.

As for how a URL works, the magic lies within a DNS or Domain Name System. All URLs are associated with a particular IP, and a DNS is the mechanism that looks up the URL and associates it to its corresponding IP address.

What is an IP?

An IP address, or Internet Protocol address, is a unique identifier given to every machine that connects to the Internet. It allows us to easily distinguish between server A and server B. As more and more devices can connect to the Internet, the number of available IP addresses decreases. This is the primary reason why IPv6 was introduced.

In the case of websites, think of an IP as the one true identifier for that domain name and the URL as the nickname. Typical IPv4 addresses resemble the following: 192.x.x.x while IPv6 addresses look similar to: fdc4:xxxx:xxxx::/48.

Reasons to convert a URL to IP

There can be a few reasons why you may want to convert a URL to an IP address.

If a website's DNS system is down, you may still be able to access it via its IP address. This occurred during Twitter's large outage back in 2016.
A particular system may only accept IP addresses instead of an FQDN. Therefore, you need to convert your URL to IP.
You want to find out more information about the URL, including who owns it and where it resides, or simply check if the domain record is correct.

Ways to convert a URL to IP

There are many ways to convert a URL to an IP address. Specific ways you may find more convenient than others; however, the following outlines three methods you can use to find the IP address of a URL.

Use a tool - KeyCDN provides a tool called IP Location Finder that you can use to quickly find the IP address, location, and hosting provider of a particular hostname. Simply enter the hostname into the search field and click Find.
Run a dig - In your command line interface, run a dig for the hostname you want to look up. To do this, simply run the following command:dig yourwebsite.com and look at the answer section which displays the A record.
Browser DevTools - Lastly, you can also use your browser's developer tools, like Google Chrome's DevTools, to find the IP address of a particular domain. To do this in Chrome, simply open up the DevTools, navigate to the Network tab and select the site's HTML doc. You should then see the IP address associated with that URL under Headers > General > Remote Address.

Summary

If you need to quickly convert a URL to an IP address, consider using one of the three methods mentioned above. There are, of course, other ways to find an IP address. However, each of the methods above is simple and provides fast results. If you require more information about a particular domain, consider using the first option (the IP Location Finder). It not only supports both IPv4 and IPv6 lookups but also offers a JSON API.