Reverse IP lookups: powerful yet overlooked tool

When it comes to leveraging website traffic, IP address searches are a vital source of information. And since they're relatively easy to conduct, they provide companies with a wealth of information regarding users.

But even though these traditional IP lookups are extremely useful, these searches are also pointed one way, giving you only half the story.

A standard IP lookup reveals locations such as country, region, city, or zip codes. While this is tremendously useful information, these searches don't reveal the specific hostnames within a network - information that's extremely useful for lead generation and site security.

This is why reverse IP lookups are so useful.

What is reverse IP lookup?

To put it simply, reverse IP lookups have a different goal than traditional IP searches. For instance, a standard IP search starts with an IP address and narrows down to specific IP geolocation data, ASN data, privacy status and other details.

But reverse IP lookups are different. They start with an IP and reveal all domains associated with that address. In other words, their goal is to show domains that are hosted on one IP address and belong to one business entity or individual.

Not sure why this data matters? For starters, if otherwise unrelated domains are connected by IP address, one site's reputation can suffer by being linked to less credible sites. More on this later. But for now, it's important to realize that shared web hosts have significant implications for businesses.

It's also important to note that reverse IP lookups differ from reverse DNS searches (rDNS). For example, reverse IP lookups can reveal hundreds or even thousands of domains hosted on one IP address.

Reverse DNS, however, can't query these kinds of results since they search individual records rather than a database. In other words, reverse IP lookups give you the full picture while rDNS gives you a partial snapshot.

At IPinfo, our API runs a specific IP through our database to query all domains hosted on that address. Plus, our database is regularly updated with the most accurate domain data, giving users the most reliable reverse IP lookup possible.

Benefits of reverse IP lookup: Protecting and improving the future

Let's take a closer look at how reverse IP lookups benefit businesses in the long-term. As was already mentioned, these searches help companies improve their site reputation, but there are other significant implications for future-oriented companies.

Enhance site security with reverse IP

For starters, protecting websites against threats like hackers and malicious software is a never-ending struggle.

Prevent spoofing IP attacks.

Many cyber attackers will use IP spoofing attempting to look legitimate to users. Some of the most common attacks include Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) Attacks, Denial-of-Service (Dos) Attacks, and Blind Spoofing.

With MiTM attacks, hackers use fake IP addresses to change communication between devices, including the content of data packets. When it comes to DoS attacks, site intruders hide the source of the attack using counterfeit IP addresses.

Finally, blind spoofing enables hackers to gather information about how a network handles transmissions. In this way, intruders learn to inject their own information into data streams without having to authenticate on the network.

Reverse IP address lookups help cybersecurity teams outpace these attacks by finding all associated domains related to a specific IP address owner. Then they can use this data to create reports that help them monitor and flag suspicious users based on this domain information.

In short, by giving you better hostname data IPinfo helps companies distinguish the good site visitors from the bad.

Develop better penetration testing and threat intelligence.

Reverse IP lookups are also an important source of information for penetration testing. Not only do these searches reveal domains on a shared network, but they can also help cybersecurity teams find vulnerabilities that come from domains with outdated software sharing that same IP address.

In other words, reverse IP lookups widen the attack surface when looking for web server vulnerabilities. The result is better threat intelligence that helps companies stay one step ahead of hackers and malicious software.

But even if specific weak points aren't identified, this data can still reveal plenty of other information that's useful for threat intelligence. For instance, reverse IP lookups can also indicate the reputation of other websites on a shared web host, such as spam or phishing sites.

Especially when trying to track down specific threats, reverse IP searches help cybersecurity teams connect the dots between specific hostnames and attacking software. Businesses, in other words, can protect their websites from those who want to exploit it.

But beyond that, if another domain on your shared IP address gets flagged for spam, your site can also be blocked, too. But reverse IP lookups can help you prevent this.

By knowing what domains share your IP address, cybersecurity teams can research suspicious hostnames. The result? Your team knows when to change or keep your web hosting address.

All this to say, using IPinfo's API developers and cybersecurity specialists can stay one step ahead of malicious software and hackers.

How reverse IP helps marketing & sales

Reverse IP lookups are valuable for more than domain security, providing further insight into site visitors (such as narrowing down specific industries to individual users who benefit from specific products or services). They also help sales and marketing teams pinpoint qualified leads.

Better lead generation

With reverse IP checks, marketing teams can identify details about IP addresses who regularly visit their website. In an era dominated by consumer expectations, these insights can help sales and marketing teams create a personalized website experience that results in more qualified leads.

By gleaning specific details about their users, marketing teams can also pinpoint what content users may need or what content specific buyer personas typically access.

Beyond that, developers can gain insight into other pertinent details such as website formats preferred by specific industries and different languages represented by site visitors. All of this contributes to tailored customer experiences throughout a sales cycle.

In the end, reverse IP lookups can help marketing teams create pinpointed content and campaigns that will answer the pain points of their buyers.

Nurturing leads throughout a sales cycle

Additionally, these insights can also help companies develop relationships throughout the entire sales funnel. Nurtured leads, for instance, tend to spend over 45 percent more than leads who don't have that relationship. That's a whole lot of revenue!

In other words, with the right insights into your target audience, you can help them understand all the ways you solve their specific problem. Sales and marketing teams can then develop a streamlined sales funnel that puts the buyer center-stage.

Simply put, reverse IP lookups reveal more about typical site traffic, helping companies create website personalization, pinpointed social and email campaigns, and targeted messaging.

In the end, these leads can easily see the full value of the product or services, resulting in customers who're convinced no one can solve their problem like you can.

Domain reputation

As was briefly mentioned, with a reverse IP check, companies can also identify "noisy neighbors." If, for instance, another domain hosted alongside yours has a bad spam reputation, it can weaken your site's reputation in the long run.

The result is that even if a marketing team continues to invest in its website ranking, lousy neighbors can undermine that investment. Reverse IP lookups, in other words, help companies protect their site ROI in the long run.

How IPinfo's reverse IP address lookup can help you

Our Reverse IP API helps protect what matters to you. By preventing fraud and improving domain reputation, businesses can outpace malicious software that erodes ROI.

Discover more ways IPinfo can help you protect your site and improve domain reputation! Connect with one of our experts today!