An IP address is a crucial part of online infrastructure and allows us to access and communicate via the internet. A better comprehension of what an IP address is may help you ensure more secure online business activities and more efficient web scraping operations. 

In this article, we will go through the concept of an IP address and how it works. Also, we will outline the main types of internet protocol addresses and mention IP management challenges to keep in mind. 

What Is an IP Address?

All the computers of the world on the Internet network communicate with each other with underground or underwater cables or wirelessly. If I want to download a file from the internet or load a web page or literally do anything related to the internet, my computer must have an address so that other computers can find and locate mine in order to deliver that particular file or webpage that I am requesting. In technical terms, that address is called IP Address or Internet Protocol Address.

Let us understand it with another example, like if someone wants to send you a mail then he/she must have your home address. Similarly, your computer too needs an address so that other computers on the internet can communicate with each other without the confusion of delivering information to someone else’s computer. And that is why each computer in this world has a unique IP Address. Or in other words, an IP address is a unique address that is used to identify computers or nodes on the internet. 

IP address versions: IPv4 and IPv6

Currently, there are two versions of IP addresses in use: IPv4 and IPv6.

IPv4

IPv4, also known as the Internet Protocol version 4, was introduced in 1981 right after experimental versions IPv1, IPv2, and IPv3, making it the first IP version to be used publicly around the world. Using 32 bits, it creates about 232 possible combinations which translate to nearly 4.3 billion (4,294,967,296) unique addresses.

However, as technology evolved, the ever-growing number of individual devices that need Internet connectivity quickly exceeded a finite pool of IPv4 unique addresses. In 2019, RIPE NCC, one of five Regional Internet Registries, reported that there are only one million IPv4 addresses left unused. Among other things, these limitations caused the birth of IPv6.

IPv6

Released in 2012 the Internet Protocol version 6 was developed in the hexadecimal format. It uses 128 bits to generate about 2128 nodes resulting in 340 trillion trillion trillion (340,282,366,920,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456) unique addresses. This should provide enough unique addresses for the expected future growth of the web.

Classification of IP Address

An IP address is classified into the following types:

1. Public IP Address: This address is available publicly and it is assigned by your network provider to your router, which further divides it to your devices. Public IP Addresses are of two types,

• Dynamic IP Address: When you connect a smartphone or computer to the internet, your Internet Service Provider provides you an IP Address from the range of available IP Addresses. Now, your device has an IP Address and you can simply connect your device to the Internet and send and receive data to and from your device. The very next time when you try to connect to the internet with the same device, your provider provides you with different IP Addresses to the same device and also from the same available range. Since IP Address keeps on changing every time when you connect to the internet, it is called a Dynamic IP Address.

• Static IP Address: Static address never changes. They serve as a permanent internet address. These are used by DNS servers. What are DNS servers? Actually, these are computers that help you to open a website on your computer. Static IP Address provides information such as device is located on which continent, which country, which city, and which Internet Service Provider provides internet connection to that particular device. Once, we know who is the ISP, we can trace the location of the device connected to the internet. Static IP Addresses provide less security than Dynamic IP Addresses because they are easier to track.

2. Private IP Address: This is an internal address of your device which are not routed to the internet and no exchange of data can take place between a private address and the internet.

3. Shared IP addresses: Many websites use shared IP addresses where the traffic is not huge and very much controllable, they decide to rent it to other similar websites so to make it cost-friendly. Several companies and email sending servers use the same IP address (within a single mail server) to cut down the cost so that they could save for the time the server is idle.

4.Dedicated IP addresses: A dedicated IP Address is an address used by a single company or an individual which gives them certain benefits using a private Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate which is not in the case of a shared IP address. It allows to access the website or log in via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) by IP address instead of its domain name. It increases the performance of the website when the traffic is high. It also protects from a shared IP address that is black-listed due to spam.

IP address management: challenges

Armed with all the knowledge about the nature of IP addresses we understand better the challenges that arise when performing web scraping operations for your business. The main obstacles would be these: 

IP address-based blocking

When accessing a website in order to perform web crawling operations, you should be aware that some servers use anti-bot measures that detect suspicious activity. After the non-human traffic is indicated, the website will deny access to the IP range your IP address belongs to. 

Usually, to avoid IP address-based bans, web scrapers use proxies that enable rotating IP addresses from which the requests are sent to the data targets. 

CAPTCHAs

During your web scraping operations, most likely you will send more requests from one IP address than a real-life user could generate at the same time. Some websites monitor and can easily detect how many requests they get from a specific IP address. Exceeding certain limits might lead to blocking your IP address or making you pass a CAPTCHA (stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) test.

Geolocation restrictions

Generally, the user’s location is identified by using geolocation techniques, including certain information based on your IP address. While some websites (e.g. e-commerce sites) may show the data, such as pricing, specifically customized for your geolocation, you will not see the whole picture and the data you gather will not be accurate. Hiding your IP address helps you avoid this. 

By using a proxy, you can mask and change both the IP address and the DNS server that the target websites can see. PIA Proxy Manager also provides an unlimited number of connections, threads and country residential proxies, you can still access US-only content in Sri Lanka. You can work in the Dominican Republic and still see German ads.

There are multiple ways to hide your IP and each has its perks and challenges. If you are interested to learn more, read an article on how to hide IP addresses.