Who is the hosting provider?¶
The hosting provider supplies some or all of the infrastructure used to make the website available. The organisation shown against an IP address may be only one layer in the service chain.
Why the first result may be incomplete¶
The visible infrastructure may involve:
- a reseller;
- a web agency;
- an underlying cloud platform;
- a managed website service;
- a content-delivery network; or
- a reverse proxy.
The network owner may not be the organisation that dealt directly with the customer.
Follow the customer relationship¶
The useful question is:
Which organisation held the customer relationship for the relevant service at the relevant time?
A network owner may identify a tenant, reseller or downstream provider. That provider may then hold the customer details or publishing records.
Preserve timing and context¶
Websites move between hosts, IP addresses are reassigned and DNS changes. Record:
- domain and hostname;
- IP address;
- exact date, time and time zone;
- source of the result; and
- the specific service or content involved.
Key takeaway
Identifying the network owner is a starting point. Trace the service chain to the provider that held the relevant customer and activity records.