Traceroute
Trace the network path to a host.
Enter a value above to run Traceroute
e.g. example.com
Quick answer
Traceroute maps every router (hop) between the tool's server and a target host, showing the round-trip time to each one. Rising or timed-out hops reveal where latency or packet loss enters the path.
Traceroute maps the sequence of routers a packet crosses on its way to a destination host. Each device along the path is a "hop," and the tool reports the round-trip time to each one, so you can see where a connection slows down or stops. It is the standard first step when a site loads slowly or is unreachable but DNS and ping look fine. Instead of a single yes-or-no answer, traceroute shows the whole journey, letting you tell whether the problem is on your side, at your provider, in transit, or at the destination network.
How it works
Traceroute sends probe packets with a deliberately small Time To Live (TTL) value. The first packet uses TTL 1, so the first router decrements it to zero and replies with an ICMP "time exceeded" message, revealing itself. The next batch uses TTL 2 to reach the second hop, and so on. By counting these expiries the tool builds the path one router at a time. The reported latency is the round trip from you to that specific hop, not the delay added by that hop alone.
How to read the results
Read the list top to bottom: hop 1 is usually your gateway, the last line is the destination. Times should rise gradually as distance grows. A sudden jump that persists across later hops points to a congested or distant link. Asterisks (*) mean a hop did not answer probes; a few are normal because many routers rate-limit or hide ICMP replies. Worry only when every remaining hop times out, which suggests the path truly breaks there rather than one quiet router.
Common problems & fixes
A single hop with high latency but normal times afterward is harmless, that router simply deprioritizes its own replies. If the trace stalls before reaching the host, note the last responding hop and check whether it belongs to your ISP or a transit network, as that narrows down who to contact. Firewalls that block ICMP or UDP can hide the final hops even when the service itself works, so confirm with a direct connection test before assuming an outage.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does the last hop show stars but the site still loads?
- Many servers and firewalls silently drop the ICMP or UDP probes traceroute uses while still accepting normal web or mail traffic. The path is fine; only the diagnostic replies are filtered. If the actual service responds when you connect directly, treat the missing final hops as a security policy, not an outage or a routing failure.
- Why is one middle hop much slower than the hops after it?
- That router is busy answering your probe as a low-priority task, so its own reply time inflates while it still forwards real traffic quickly. Because later hops show normal latency, the packets clearly passed through without trouble. Only treat rising latency as a real problem when the increase carries through to every hop that follows it.
- What is the difference between traceroute and ping?
- Ping tells you whether a host is reachable and how long a round trip takes, giving one number for the whole path. Traceroute breaks that path into individual hops and times each one, so it shows where along the route delay or a break occurs. Use ping to confirm a problem exists, then traceroute to locate which segment is responsible.