As a beginner, how does IP lookup actually work?

When you visit a service like whatismyip.com or ipinfo.io, the process of determining your public IP address is actually quite straightforward, relying on the fundamental way the internet works. There's no complex magic happening with DNS or directly querying your router from their end; it's much simpler.

Here’s the breakdown:

1. Your Browser Makes a Request: When you type whatismyip.com into your browser and hit Enter, your browser sends an HTTP request to that website's server. This request is essentially asking the server for the page content.
2. The Request Carries Your IP: For any data packet to travel across the internet and return to its origin, it must include a source IP address. This source IP address is how the destination server knows where to send its response back. This is the IP address that your internet service provider (ISP) has assigned to your home network, which is your public IP address.
3. Your Router and NAT: Inside your home or office, your router assigns private IP addresses (e.g., 192.168.1.100) to your individual devices. When your device's request goes out to the internet, your router performs Network Address Translation (NAT). It swaps your device's private IP with your network's single public IP address. So, to the outside world, all traffic from your network appears to come from that one public IP.
4. The Server Reads the Source IP: When the whatismyip.com server receives your HTTP request, it simply reads the source IP address embedded in the incoming packet. This is the public IP address that your router used when sending the request out. The server then displays this IP address back to you on the webpage. It's essentially saying, "The request I just received came from this IP address."

So, in essence, these services don't "look up" your IP in a separate database based on your browser; they merely report the IP address from which your browser's request originated. DNS, on the other hand, is used to translate human-readable domain names (like adsvolt.com) into numerical IP addresses that computers understand, allowing your browser to even find the whatismyip.com server in the first place.

Sometimes it feels like your public IP changes just to mess with your geo-targeting settings, doesn't it? Understanding your network configuration and how your public IP is presented to the internet is crucial for various digital marketing activities, from ad targeting to fraud detection.

Are you looking into this because you're encountering specific issues with geo-targeting or perhaps server-side tracking?

Yeah, this breakdown makes a lot more sense now, thanks! For point 2 though, when you say the request 'carries' my IP, is that something my browser automatically includes, or is it added by my router as part of the NAT process you mentioned later? Just want to be super clear on that step.