Illustration of a laptop connected to a website through a route marked with multiple location pins, representing the path data takes across the internet and how traceroute maps network journeys.

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Traceroute Explained: Following Your Data Across the Internet

Jun 15, 2026

A single click can send data across cities, countries and countless networks before a webpage appears on your screen.

All before you've finished reaching for your tea.

Traceroute pulls back the curtain on that journey, revealing every hop along the way and helping uncover where problems occur.

Traceroute is a network diagnostic tool that shows the path data takes from your device to a destination on the internet.

Instead of simply telling you whether a website or server is reachable, traceroute maps every stop along the way.

For network engineers, it's a troubleshooting tool. For everyone else, it's a useful way to understand why a connection might be slow, unreliable, or failing altogether.

Let's get into it.

What Is Traceroute?

Traceroute is a command-line utility that tracks the route internet traffic follows between two points.

When data travels across the internet, it rarely takes a direct route. Instead, it hops between multiple routers and networks before reaching its destination.

Each of these stops is called a hop.

Traceroute identifies:

Every hop between source and destination
The time taken to reach each hop
Where delays are occurring
Where connections may be failing

Behind every webpage is a chain of routers, networks and connections. Traceroute shows you all of them.

How Does Traceroute Work?

Traceroute works by sending a series of test packets across the network.

These packets are deliberately configured to expire after travelling a certain number of hops.

The process works like this:

A packet is sent with a hop limit of one.
The first router receives it and returns a response.
Another packet is sent with a hop limit of two.
The second router responds.
The process continues until the destination is reached.

By collecting responses and hops from every router along the route, traceroute builds a complete picture of the journey.

What Is a Hop?

A hop is a point where traffic moves from one router to another.

A typical traceroute may include:

Your home router
Your ISP's network
Regional internet exchanges
Backbone providers
Cloud infrastructure networks
The destination server

A nearby website might require 10-15 hops.

A server located on another continent may involve 20-30 hops or more.

Why Is Traceroute Useful?

Traceroute helps identify where network issues are occurring.

Diagnosing Slow Connections

If one hop suddenly shows a large increase in response time, it may indicate congestion or routing issues.

Finding Network Failures

When data hits a dead end, traceroute helps you find it.

Troubleshooting Website Access Problems

When your connection hits a roadblock, traceroute helps you see exactly where it is:

On your network
With your ISP
Somewhere on the wider internet
At the destination server

Investigating Application Performance

Cloud applications, video calls, online games and VoIP services all rely on data travelling through multiple networks before reaching its destination.

Traceroute provides visibility into that journey, helping identify where delays or connection problems occur.

How to Run Traceroute

On Windows: Open Command Prompt and run: tracert google.com
On macOS: Open Terminal and run: traceroute google.com
On Linux: Open Terminal and run: traceroute google.com. Replace "google.com" with any hostname or IP address you want to test.

How to Read Traceroute Results

Run a traceroute and you'll see something like this:

Each line represents a hop.

The information shown typically includes:

Element	Meaning
Hop Number	Position in the route
Hostname/IP	Device handling traffic
Response Time	Time taken to reach that hop

Response times are measured in milliseconds (ms). Generally speaking, the lower the number, the faster the response.

**What Do Asterisks (*) Mean in Traceroute?**

Sometimes you'll see output like this:

8 * * *

This doesn't always mean something is broken.

Many routers are configured to:

Ignore traceroute requests
Prioritise normal traffic
Block diagnostic responses

If the traceroute continues successfully after the asterisks, there's often no issue.

However, repeated timeouts followed by a failed route may indicate:

Firewall restrictions
Routing problems
Network outages
Device failures

Traceroute vs Ping

Traceroute and ping are often used together, but they answer different questions.

Tool	Purpose
Ping	Is the destination reachable?
Traceroute	How did traffic get there?

Ping measures overall response time.

Traceroute lets you follow your data's journey from start to finish.

If a website feels slow, ping tells you there's a problem. Traceroute helps identify where the problem exists.

What Causes High Latency?

Several factors can increase response times.

Distance: The farther traffic has to travel, the longer it takes.
Network Congestion: Busy routers and overloaded links can introduce delays.
Poor Routing: Traffic sometimes follows inefficient paths between networks.
Wireless Connections: Wi-Fi interference and signal issues can affect latency.
ISP Issues: Performance problems within an internet provider's network can impact response times.

Common Traceroute Misconceptions

A Slow Hop Doesn't Always Mean a Problem: Some routers deprioritise traceroute traffic. A hop may appear slow while still forwarding actual traffic normally.
More Hops Aren't Necessarily Bad: A route with 20 fast hops can perform better than a route with 10 congested ones.
Timeouts Don't Always Indicate Failure: Many network devices intentionally ignore traceroute requests for security reasons. The key is whether subsequent hops continue responding.