What is a traceroute?

When your computer connects to a server, it follows a certain route via different networks and servers. Each server is a “hop” on the traceroute. You can think of it in the same way you would take different routes and roads when travelling from one city to another. And every town you pass through is a server you pass through to a new network. When a traceroute is run, it returns a list of network hops and displays the hostname and IP address of each connection. It also returns the amount of time it took for each connection to take place. This is usually shown in milliseconds. If a network connection is slow or unresponsive, a traceroute can often explain where the problem exists.