Lookup details about an IP address are unique strings of numbers that identify devices on a network. These addresses ensure that data sent over the Internet reaches its intended destination. Without them, routers and other network devices wouldn’t function or transfer data. But if someone knows your IP address, they can trace where you live (or at least your approximate location). And that’s not good for anyone—especially advertisers and websites that track what you do online and use it to send you spam emails or targeted ads.

Looking Up IP Address Details: What You Need to Know

Luckily, there are tools that let you look up details about an IP address for free. These tools search databases that provide information about the organization that manages an IP range, which networks are connected to it, and where it’s located geographically. You can also see which internet service providers are associated with an IP address, check its associated autonomous system number, and check whether the IP has been reported for abuse.

Unlike master-detail relationships, which require child records to look up to their parent record and can’t work independently, lookups are loosely coupled. This means that a lookup doesn’t have to look up to its parent, and if it didn’t it would just disappear from reports and dashboards. It can still have a field that references its parent—but only so it can display aggregated information, like count, sum, or min/max values. In fact, Salesforce limits the number of lookup parents a custom object can have to 40—so if you had more than 40 lookups, they’d all be erased if you deleted the parent record.