Traceroute

Introduction

This Traceroute tool shows the path your traffic takes across the internet to reach a domain or IP, revealing each hop and how long it takes. It’s built for diagnosing slow routes, packet loss, and peering issues—useful for IT, gamers, remote workers, and anyone troubleshooting why a site or service feels slow from a region.

What is this tool?

Traceroute sends packets with increasing hop limits so each router along the path replies. The tool records every hop’s IP/host (when available) and the round-trip time (ms). A clean route has consistent times and no timeouts. High latency jumps or repeated timeouts at a hop can indicate congestion, filtering, or a routing problem.

Why use this tool?

- Routing diagnosis: See where latency spikes or timeouts occur.
- Regional performance checks: Understand if slowness is due to distance or a bad path.
- ISP/peering visibility: Identify which network/ASN is causing slowdowns.
- Troubleshooting: Distinguish between app/server issues vs. network path issues.
- Verification: After DNS/CDN changes, confirm traffic is taking the expected path.

How to use it

1) Enter a domain or IP (e.g., example.com or 203.0.113.10).
2) Click “Run Traceroute.”
3) Review each hop, its IP/host (if shown), and latency (ms).
4) Look for big latency jumps or consistent timeouts; those hops may be problematic or de-prioritizing ICMP.
5) Retest at a different time or from another network to compare routes.

Example

Input: example.com
Output (simplified):
1) 10.0.0.1 — 2 ms
2) 198.51.100.1 — 8 ms
3) 203.0.113.5 — 12 ms
4) 203.0.113.22 — 14 ms
5) 203.0.113.45 — 16 ms
Interpretation: Stable, low-latency route with no timeouts.

Another example (problem case)

Hop 6: 180 ms (big jump from 25 ms prior)
Hop 7: * * * (timeouts)
Interpretation: Possible congestion or filtering at hop 6/7. Re-test later and consider sharing with ISP/host.

FAQ

Do you store the hosts I test?

No—targets are used only for live checks and aren’t retained.

Why do some hops show * or no name?

Routers may block or de-prioritize ICMP/time-to-live replies. Timeouts don’t always mean the path is broken; check downstream hops and overall completion.

Why is latency higher than ping?

Traceroute touches multiple hops and may use different probes. Congestion or ICMP throttling can also add delay.

What should I do with a bad hop?

If the path consistently spikes or dies at a provider’s hop, share the trace with your ISP/host. If it’s intermittent, it may be congestion; retest off-peak or from another location.