Hey, what’s an IP Address?
An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is like your home address but for computer networks and the internet.
Imagine you are trying to send a letter to a friend through the post office. You need to know their address to send them the letter. Computers need to know where to send the information.
IP addresses are how the computer knows where to send and receive information over the internet. Without IP addresses there wouldn’t be a way to connect with another computer.
Let’s answer some questions you may have.
What does an IP address look like?
There are 2 different types of IP address. One is all numbers. It looks like this 255.255.0.0. The other type looks like this FE80:0000:0000:0000:0202:B3FF:FE1E:8329.
How does the computer know the IP address?
Every time you go to a website your computer sends the .com name you put in the address bar to a DNS resolver. The DNS resolver converts the .com name to an IP address. Then your computer starts loading the website. This happens so fast you don’t realize it’s happening.
Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) has a server to do the DNS resolution for you.
