IP guide

Public vs Private IP Addresses

That 192.168 address in your router is real, but it is not the address the wider internet can route to directly.

Why this confuses people

Someone checks their laptop and sees 192.168.1.24. Then a website, support form, or security log shows a completely different address. Both can be true. The laptop has a private address on the local network, while websites see the public address used by the router, ISP, VPN, office firewall, or cloud gateway.

The private IPv4 ranges to recognize

These ranges are meant for internal networks. If a public DNS record points visitors to one of them, most people outside that private network will not reach the service.

What NAT is doing in the background

NAT lets many devices share one public route to the internet. Your phone, laptop, printer, and TV can all have private addresses at home, while websites see the same public IP from your router. In an office, that public address may belong to a firewall or security gateway instead of any one employee device.

Good troubleshooting questions

If a support team asks for your IP, ask yourself which one they need. For a login issue, they usually need the public IP visible to their service. For a printer or local app problem, they may need the private address on your LAN. For a website DNS record, a private address is usually a red flag unless the site is intentionally internal.

Tools that help

Use What Is My IP to see the public address visible from your current connection. Use IPv4 Lookup when you want to confirm whether an address is private, public, or malformed before copying it into a ticket.