Hops along a path

Traceroute attempts to discover routers along a packet’s path. The common Windows tool is called tracert. Each line provides an observation about a hop, not a complete physical map of the internet. Different probe protocols or measurement times may produce different paths.

What an asterisk means

An asterisk generally means no reply arrived within the expected time. An intermediate device may still forward traffic without replying. If later hops and the destination respond, a single asterisk is not proof of an outage. Security policies or response rate limits can cause it.

Assess delay end to end

If an intermediate router shows high delay but later hops do not, generating replies may simply be low priority. Delay that persists to the destination is more meaningful. Forward and return paths may differ, so include the test time and target when sharing results with support.

A slow intermediate hop

If hop three shows 200 ms but hop four and the destination show 25 ms, the third router’s response behavior may explain the reading. Check whether the delay persists to the destination. Persistent delay warrants further investigation. Record a few timestamped measurements rather than presenting one intermediate row as the performance of the entire connection.

Put it into practice

Inspect one public IP, or compare a list of addresses with the bulk lookup tool. Location results are approximate.

Single lookup ↗ Bulk lookup ↗