How to find who hosts your website

The fastest way to find who hosts your website is to look at who you pay: search your card statements and email for a yearly or monthly charge with "hosting", a builder's name or a web designer on it. If that turns up nothing, the website itself leaves clues, in its footer, in its page code and in its DNS records, which point to the company whose computers serve it. Combine two or three clues and you can usually name the host in fifteen minutes.

Hosting, registrar and DNS are three different jobs

Before you start, it helps to know what you are looking for:

• The registrar rents you the domain name. You find it with a lookup at lookup.icann.org, as explained in how to find where your domain is registered.
• The DNS provider holds the settings that point the domain at a website and an email service.
• The host is the company whose computers store your website's files and show them to visitors.

One company can do all three, or they can be three different companies. You might have a domain at Namecheap, DNS at Cloudflare and the website on a WordPress host. This guide is about the third one.

Clue 1: Follow the money

Hosting is never free for long, so someone is paying for it.

• Search business and personal card statements for words like "hosting", "web", "site" and the names of builders such as Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy, Weebly or Duda.
• Search your email for "invoice", "renewal" or "your plan", and for your domain name.
• Ask your bookkeeper to look in the accounts for a recurring tech charge.
• If a web designer or agency built the site, check whether they bill you a monthly "maintenance" or "care" fee. That often means the site sits on their hosting account.

If the payment goes to your designer, the honest answer to "who hosts my website" is "my designer, on a server they rent". You will need them to tell you where.

Clue 2: Look at the site itself

Open your website on a computer.

• The footer. Builders often add "Powered by", "Made with" or a small logo at the bottom of each page.
• The browser tab icon. A Wix, Squarespace or Weebly icon is a giveaway if nobody replaced it.
• The page code. Right-click a blank spot on the page and choose View page source. Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac) and search for words like wix, squarespace, weebly, godaddy, shopify or wp-content. "wp-content" means the site is WordPress, which can be hosted almost anywhere, so you will need Clue 3 as well.

A builder like Wix or Squarespace is also the host. If you find one of them here, you have your answer.

Clue 3: Ask the domain where it points

Your domain's DNS records say where visitors are sent.

1. Look up your domain at lookup.icann.org and note the Name servers. They name the DNS provider, which is sometimes also the host. Name servers containing wixdns.net or squarespacedns.com, for example, point to those builders.
2. If the name servers belong to your registrar or to Cloudflare, they are only passing the question on. Use a free DNS lookup site (search "DNS lookup") and look up the A record for your domain. It shows an IP address, a number like 203.0.113.25.
3. Put that number into a free "IP lookup" or "IP owner" site. It shows which company owns the computer at that address, such as a hosting company or a large cloud provider.

If the IP belongs to Cloudflare, the site is behind Cloudflare's protection and the real host is hidden behind it. In that case the person who set up the Cloudflare account can see the real address in its DNS page.

Clue 4: Ask the people involved

Sometimes the quickest route is a phone call:

• The web designer who built the site.
• The marketing company that "handles the website".
• A past employee who looked after the computers.
• The previous owner, if you bought the business.

Ask three things: which company hosts the site, whose account it is in, and how to log in. Write the answers down.

What to do once you know

Knowing the host is only useful if you can reach the account. Once you find it:

• Get the login and turn on two-step sign-in. If the account is in someone else's name, ask to have it moved to the business or to be added as an owner.
• Check the renewal date and the price at renewal, which is often higher than the first year.
• Check what else is on the plan. Email, other websites and backups often share the same hosting account. Cancel nothing until you know what is attached. Website hosting and email from the same company explains how bundles tangle.
• Get a copy of your site. Ask the host or use its control panel to download a backup.
• Write it all down next to your domain details.

If you cannot find the host at all

It happens with older sites built by a designer who has moved on. If the site still shows when you type your address, the host is still being paid by someone, or the bill is about to lapse. You have a few choices:

• Keep trying the designer. Even a short email asking for the host's name is often answered.
• Save the site as it is now: take screenshots of every page and copy the text, so nothing is lost if it goes dark.
• Plan a replacement you control, and point your domain at it when it is ready. As long as you control the domain itself, the old host can be left behind safely.

Your fifteen-minute checklist

1. Search statements and email for hosting charges and your domain name.
2. Check the site's footer and page source for a builder's name.
3. Look up the name servers and the A record, then the IP's owner.
4. Call or email whoever built the site.
5. Log in, note the renewal date, and download a backup.

If what you find is a site nobody can log into any more, you can see your site rebuilt first from what it shows today, and move the domain over only once you are happy with the new one.