It is true that each website is identified by an IP address. While many websites can be accessed directly by typing their IP addresses in the address bar of the browser, most of the websites can’t be accessed by typing their IP addresses in the address bar of the browser. What is the reason for this differentiation?
It is a fact that each website has an IP address. However, it is not necessary that this IP address allocated to a web site shall always be a unique IP address. While many websites have unique IP addresses, there are many other websites which use shared IP addresses along with other websites. In fact, in some cases, a single IP address may be shared by hundreds of websites. Of course, the web server on which such websites are hosted will have a unique IP address which is then shared by all these websites hosted on this server. Due to this reason, when you type an IP address, which is shared by several websites, in the address bar of the browser, your browser cannot take you to the desired web site since this IP address may not be related only to one web site but rather it addresses several websites hosted on the same server. Therefore, instead of taking you to one of those several websites, such shared IP address will take you to a default web page on the web server which has been allocated with this IP address. The web server now cannot find out simply by looking at the IP address typed by you as to which one of the several websites hosted on this server you wanted to visit.
But when you type the domain name of the website in the browser, the browser will first check the name server to find out its IP address for that domain name, then it will try to connect the site with this twin piece of information, i.e., the domain name as well as the IP address. In this scenario, the IP address will take you to the web server that has this IP address, and with the help of the domain name that web server can find out which website (hosted on that server with that shared IP address) you wanted to visit. Therefore, when you type the domain name of a website (which has a shared IP address) in the browser, you’ll be in a position to visit that site; but typing just the IP address for this site (having shared IP address) will not enable you to access that site.
On the other hand, if a website has a unique IP address that is not shared by it with any other websites on the Internet, then typing that IP address in the address bar of the browser will take you to that particular website since now this IP address is unique to this website. For example, when you type 74.125.45.100 in the address bar of the browser, it will take you to google.com, since it is the unique IP address for that site.
To learn more as to why some sites have a unique IP address, whereas many other sites have a shared IP address, read my earlier article, Dedicated IP address or Shared IP address? Which is better for your site?
To learn more about how to find the IP address of a website or of a domain name, read this article.
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