Your public IP is the address presented to this website by your current internet path. It may belong to your ISP, mobile carrier, workplace, VPN provider or another network intermediary.
What is a public IP address?
A public IP address is used to communicate across the public internet. Websites and online services normally see this address when your connection reaches them. It is different from the private addresses used inside your home or office network.
Public IP versus private IP
Private IPv4 ranges such as 192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x and 172.16.x.x–172.31.x.x can be reused independently on millions of local networks. Your router or organization can assign those addresses internally while presenting one or more public addresses to the internet.
IPv6 changes some of the addressing model, but the basic distinction remains: websites can only communicate with the public route your connection exposes to them.
Why does my IP address change?
Many internet providers use dynamic addressing, so the public address assigned to a customer can change over time. Switching from home Wi-Fi to mobile data, reconnecting through an ISP, moving between networks or choosing a different VPN server can also produce a different public IP.
Does incognito mode hide or change my IP?
No. Private or incognito browsing changes how the browser stores local history, cookies and session information. It does not, by itself, route your traffic through another network. Websites can still see the public IP used by the connection.
How the private IP-change history works
The “Has My IP Changed?” feature stores the previous public IP and timestamp in your browser's localStorage. The comparison happens on your device. IP-Lookup.com does not maintain a server-side database of your previous IP addresses for this feature, and clearing browser storage removes the saved baseline.
What should you check next?
If you want to understand the address rather than simply view it, run the full IP report to see approximate location, ASN and network information. If you are checking a VPN, save the current address first, connect the VPN, and then compare the new public IP together with WebRTC and IPv6 diagnostics.