Shared vs. Dedicated IPs

This article will explain the differences between a Shared and Dedicated IP.

Shared IP

Every domain name has an assigned IP address, an IP address is the actual address of a website or server. Domain names were developed because it's hard to remember long IP numbers like 72.29.67.207

In shared hosting, several hundred websites are hosted on a server; those same sites will share a single IP address. Instead of having a unique IP address for each domain, you share one IP address with all the accounts on your server. The downside of shared IPs is that some countries like China censor certain websites based on their IP address. If a website they censor is on the same server as yours and China blocks that website using the shared IP address, then your website and the hundreds of others on that server are also blocked. This means that no customer in China would be able to see your site. Getting a dedicated IP address would make your website separate so that if the shared IP address was blocked your site would not automatically be blocked along with it.

Dedicated IP

By purchasing a Dedicated IP, your site is the only one on the Internet that will use that unique IP address. For example, if you typed http://72.29.67.207/ into the address bar of your web browser, you'll see the AndeanHost website appear. This is your dedicated IP address, this is your unique address on the web that has been assigned to the domain name andean.host

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