Who is Hosting this website? Here is How to Find Out!

Finding the best web host for your website is not easy, as the Internet is full of spam and paid hosting reviews that are misleading. You can always find some great reviews about the worst hosting company out there.

Most people who are in need of a new hosting company have little time to do the proper research and want to opt for the one which they think will give them peace of mind.

Even here at ShoutMeLoud, I don’t expect anyone to directly choose any single hosting company, as I have talked about various quality hosting companies like Bluehost, HostArmada, Kinsta  and others.

The reason for offering a number of different options here is to make sure that you are not limited to one option.

In addition to the information contained within this post, I welcome direct email contact from Shouters who are seeking suggestions for their particular project or simply because they are new to blogging and unsure which host to choose.

Although this communication may require some time, it is worth delaying your project by a day or two in an effort to select the right hosting company.

Another good way to assess the strength of the various hosting companies is to look into which hosting company is being used by any good, successful websites, or even by the websites of your competitors.

I personally like the approach of checking to see which hosting company your competitor is using, as your website may require more or less the same resources. You may not need the same level of hosting (Shared, VPS hosting, Dedicated) initially, but you can always start with a starter hosting package with the same company.

In this guide, I will show you how you can find out what company is hosting a particular website. This will help you to narrow down your choices for a reliable web hosting company.

Who is hosting that website?

Following are two particular ways in which you can figure out which web hosting company is being used by a particular website. Please note that these results may not be accurate in certain circumstances which you will find noted below.

Method 1: Use Who.is: Hosting checker tool

This is the first thing that will help you to identify the web hosting service of a particular website. Using Who.is, you can find the name-server used by a domain, and that in most cases will reveal the hosting company. Once you have found the name-server, simply find out which hosting company that name server belongs to.

For example, according to Who.is records, Dreamhost is hosting labnol.org.

Website nameserver
  • Save

Note:  In certain scenarios this will not work, for example:

  • When the website owner is using a branded Name server.
  • When the website owner is using a CNAME record to point domain to webhosting company.

 

This is another interesting manner of identifying who is hosting any website. The problem with this website is that it doesn’t show the exact shared hosting company being used by the website. It shows the main hosting company behind the company a website is using.

For example, it shows the unified layer instead of Bluehost or Hostgator (both are part of EIG group, and EIG group is what you would find with this search), and Citrex hosting instead of WPEngine. For this reason, this is not your best option for identifying a website hosting company.

Method 2: Contact the admin:

As always we must be careful not to allow available tricks and tools like these to blind us to the most obvious and most simple way to identify the hosting company used by a website.

You can always contact the admin of any website you like, and ask for the name of the hosting company they are using!

As self-managers of our websites, we know how important it is to choose the best hosting, and a lot of us are happy to recommend the hosting company we are using.

Send an email to the website’s admin with your question (including requirements for your proposed site), or include the options you are considering.

Here is a good format for such an email:

Hey $Name
Thanks for creating such a wonderful website. I would like to ask for a suggestion from you regarding hosting for my new website. I’m starting a WordPress blog that is targeted to U.S visitors, and I would like to ask your advice regarding web hosting services. Could you please let me know which web hosting company you are using, which hosting company is good for a new WordPress blog, and which package I should opt for?
Thanks for taking the time!
From your long-time reader,
$Name$

One simple email will help you find the hosting company being used by top players in your niche, and you have a personalized recommendation. It never hurts to ask!  If you don’t ask, you know for sure that you won’t get an answer!

Overall, it’s very important to choose a reliable hosting company for your project and try not to sacrifice the quality of hosting for the price.

A good hosting company will not only give you peace of mind, but it will also help you to focus on what you are good at. Here are some hosting companies that I can suggest according to your needs:

Do let me know if you know of any other tricks to identify which web-hosting company is hosting a particular website.

Which web host are you using for your website?

Share your thoughts with us using the comments section below.

If you find the information in this post useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!
  • Save
Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

3 thoughts on “Who is Hosting this website? Here is How to Find Out!”

  1. Sagar Desai

    Nice article Harsh.

    I use who.is for basic information. To dig deeper I like mxtoolbox which easily provide all DNS information including A records and ns.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Anoop Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately this one also have the same problem like whoishostingthis. ShoutMeLoud is hosted on WpEngine, and according to this tool it’s hosted on Linode. Here is the result which I got after following your tip:
      IP Address : 198.74.59.100

      Location : United States (95% accuracy)

      Host Name : li550-100.members.linode.com

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top