Unique IP Address – Why is it Important?

Unique IP Address – Why is it Important?

What is an IP address?

An IP address is a set of 4 digits assigned to each device on a computer network. An IP address can be reflected as a numerical representation of a website address. For example, the domain google.com has the IP address 73.14.213.99.

How do IP addresses work?

When you type a domain name or a website name in your browser window, your browser will first match that domain name to an IP address. Then, it will redirect the server to that IP address.

Why would you want a unique IP address for your website?

Websites that have unique IP addresses are steadier and more reliable.

Disadvantages of sharing an IP address:

Sharing an IP address = Higher chance of website outage

Most website hosting providers cram thousands of websites on one server. This means that they often have all of the websites on a particular server share one IP only. This practice is quite dangerous as it will expose the functionality of each website on the server.

If your website is sharing an IP with 1,000 other websites on a server and one of those websites gets blocked or hacked. All 1,000 of those websites, including yours, would be blocked or hacked as well.

Advantages of having a unique IP address:

Having unique IP addresses = Increased stability and reliability for your website.

By having your unique IP addresses, your website would not be affected by other websites that are on the same server. If a website’s IP gets blocked or blacklisted on the same server your website shares, it would not disturb your website.

The internet is running out of space

The current IPv4 address pool is almost consumed to the max.

It was announced in early 2011 that the last batch of IP addresses have been allocated. This last batch of IP addresses will probably be used up towards the end of 2011. The current IPv4 address system has about 4.3 billion addresses. With a growing pool of internet users and internet-connected devices, 4.3 billion IP addresses are not enough to meet today’s demand.

Fortunately, researchers have designed a new IP system – IPv6. This new system has 360 undecillion IP addresses and has been available since 1999. But it seems like the transition is slow, and we’ll be stuck with IPv4 for a while. Here’s why:

Transitioning 4.3 billion IP addresses over to the new IPv6 system will take quite some time.
Existing equipment will need to be upgraded to support the new IPv6 address system.
Not many Internet Service providers (ISP) support IPv6. This means that if your ISP does not support IPv6, then you won’t be able to access websites hosted with IPv6 addresses.

Currently, IPv4 addresses are accessible through all ISPs, whereas IPv6 addresses are not