HOW LONG do websites keep ip download logs (if they are from users WITHOUT accounts, and is there any difference in how this is handled?)
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Executive summary
Websites and web hosts do not follow a single industry rule for how long they retain IP-addresses tied to downloads from anonymous (no-account) visitors; retention commonly ranges from days or weeks for ordinary server logs up to months or a few years where legal, business or operational reasons require it, and national laws can force longer retention in some jurisdictions (e.g., mandatory retention rules outside the U.S.) [1][2][3].
1. What the question really asks and what reporting actually covers
The inquiry targets how long "websites" keep IP download logs for users without accounts and whether handling differs for account-less visitors; the available reporting mixes three distinct domains—website/server operators’ own access logs, ISPs’ DHCP/IP assignment logs, and statutory government mandates—so definitive universal timings are not available and must be answered as ranges and conditional practices rather than a single number [1][4][3].
2. Typical practice for webservers and hosts: short-to-medium retention
Most webservers keep access logs (including source IP and requested URLs) for operational reasons—troubleshooting, analytics and abuse mitigation—and administrators typically purge or rotate those logs on a schedule measured in days, weeks or months because IPs alone grow stale and long-term storage adds cost; security and operations experts note that IPs are often only useful if correlated quickly, so long multi-year retention is uncommon for ordinary webserver logs unless there is a specific reason to archive them [1][5].
3. How ISPs’ records differ and why people confuse the two
When a server records an IP at time of a download and a third party later needs the subscriber identity, investigators usually subpoena an ISP to map that IP/time to a subscriber; ISPs maintain DHCP or assignment logs on their end and those retention spans vary widely—commonly from months up to one or two years under industry practice, with some providers citing ~180 days for certain logs—so the practical window for identification often depends as much on ISP retention as on the website’s own logs [6][4][7].
4. Legal and geographic variation changes everything
Retention policies are shaped by law: many countries mandate ISPs and sometimes hosting providers keep connection and activity logs for set periods (examples range from 60 days to multiple years in some jurisdictions), whereas the United States has no single federal IP-log retention law and leaves much to providers’ policies and legal process obligations, creating material differences depending on where the website or ISP operates [3][8].
5. Does “no account” change retention?
There is no universal rule that websites treat account-less visitors entirely differently for logs; a server’s access log records IPs from both anonymous and authenticated visitors by default, and retention decisions are generally driven by the operator’s operational needs, privacy policy, and legal obligations rather than whether the visitor had an account—however, sites with logged-in users may link activity to accounts and thus retain or store related metadata differently for business or legal reasons, while anonymous-access logs may be purged sooner in practice [1][9].
6. Practical guidance and limits of the record
Judicial or investigative timelines depend on both the website’s archival practices and the ISP’s mapping retention; if a user needs evidence older than a site’s stated log retention the record may already be purged, and many public resources caution that retention practices are diverse, often undocumented publicly, and shaped by storage cost, usefulness of stale IPs, and local law—reporting demonstrates ranges rather than certainties and does not provide a single authoritative retention period for all websites worldwide [1][2][8].