Reverse IP Lookup
Reverse IP lookup is an older identification method that takes a visitor's IP address and looks up the company that owns it. It returns a business name, not a person. It is not what LeadSpyder relies on, because it cannot identify individual consumers.
How it works in practice
Every device on the internet has an IP address owned by an internet provider or a company. A reverse lookup matches the IP to the registered owner. For a Fortune 500 company on a dedicated block that yields the company name. For a homeowner on a residential connection it yields nothing useful, because the IP belongs to the internet provider, not the person browsing.
What it is commonly confused with
It is commonly confused with person-level identification, but the two produce different outputs. Reverse IP names companies. Person-level identification names people. For a roofer or a dentist whose visitors are homeowners on residential connections, reverse IP returns nothing, which is why it is not the method that works for consumer businesses. Many tools still sell it as identification, which is misleading for anyone selling to people.
Why it matters to a business owner
If you buy a tool that only does reverse IP and you sell to consumers, you will get company names for the few business visitors and nothing for everyone else. Knowing the method matters, because the wrong method produces an empty pipeline for a consumer-facing business. Ask any vendor what their tool actually returns, a company or a person, before you pay for it.