openDMCA

    Who hosts this site

    Public DNS records name who runs a site's infrastructure: the nameservers identify its DNS operator, a CNAME identifies the CDN in front of it, and a reverse lookup on its address usually names the network hosting it. Paste a URL and all three come back, with the raw records shown.

    Given a URL, produce the host, the CDN, and whether it sits behind Cloudflare, in under 5 seconds.

    Free: 30 lookups an hour. Answers come from public DNS records, so the cap exists only to be fair to the resolver openDMCA queries — nothing about the result is held back.

    Only the hostname is read, and only its public DNS records. The page itself is never fetched.

    Only the hostname is read, and only its public DNS records are queried — openDMCA never fetches the page or its content. The hostname is discarded when the request ends; a hashed rate-limit key is kept.

    How to identify a web host by hand

    Four public DNS records between them describe who runs a site, and each answers a different question. None of them requires visiting the site.

    1. NS records name the authoritative nameservers for the domain. The nameserver hostname usually gives away the operator: a name ending in ns.cloudflare.com means the domain's DNS is on Cloudflare, awsdns means Route 53, domaincontrol.com means GoDaddy.
    2. The CNAME for the specific hostname, where one exists, names the CDN the traffic is routed through. A CNAME pointing at cloudfront.net, fastly.net or b-cdn.net tells you which company sits between the reader and the web host.
    3. A records give the IP addresses being served from. Behind a CDN these belong to the CDN rather than the origin, which is the whole point of a CDN and the reason the origin is often not discoverable this way.
    4. A reverse lookup on the first address usually returns a hostname belonging to the network operator, which names the company whose abuse desk has authority over the machine.

    Run them with dig NS example.com and dig example.com, or in a browser through any DNS-over-HTTPS resolver. The web host that appears is a fact about infrastructure, and it is public by design.

    Where identifying the web host by hand stops being useful

    Knowing which web host and CDN sit behind a domain is worth ten minutes once. It stops paying off for three reasons, none of them about the lookup.

    A CDN hides the origin on purpose. When Cloudflare or a similar service is in front, the addresses returned are the CDN's. The machine actually storing the files is not in public DNS, which is why the CDN's own abuse channel exists and is often the only route to it.

    The answer is a means, not an end. Nothing comes down because you identified a host. The finding matters only when it changes which channel you file through, which happens at round two, after the host has already ignored round one.

    It changes underneath you. Aggregators move CDN, change registrar and rotate addresses, and none of that is announced. A host list built in spring is stale by autumn and stale silently.

    openDMCA runs the same detection automatically on each dispatch and uses it to pick the next rung: host, then CDN, then search delisting. See how openDMCA escalates past a host to its CDN.

    Frequently asked questions

    Does this tool visit the site I paste?

    No. Only the hostname is extracted and only its public DNS records are queried. No request is made to the site, nothing is downloaded from it, and the site's operator sees nothing.

    Why does it say a CDN but not a host?

    Because a CDN in front of a site is designed to hide the origin. The addresses in public DNS belong to the CDN, and the machine storing the files is not published. That is not a gap in the lookup; it is the CDN working.

    What do I do with the Cloudflare answer?

    Cloudflare accepts copyright reports about sites it fronts, at abuse.cloudflare.com, and it forwards them to the origin host it will not name. That is a second channel running alongside the notice to the host itself, not a replacement for it.

    The DNS operator is not recognised. Is that a failure?

    No. The tool names an operator only when the nameserver pattern is one it recognises, and reports the raw nameservers otherwise. Naming a company that has no relationship to the host would send a notice to the wrong place.

    Is looking this up legal?

    Yes. DNS records are public by design — they are what makes the site reachable in the first place. Anyone can query them, and doing so tells the site's operator nothing.