HTTP & Networking
What is an IP address?
A numeric label assigned to every device on a network that uses the Internet Protocol, used to route packets between hosts.
Also known as: IP, Internet Protocol address
An IP address is the postal code of the internet. When your browser asks for stripe.com, DNS resolves the hostname to an IP (something like 34.149.87.45), and routers on the path use that IP to forward packets to Stripe's servers. Every device that talks IP, from your phone to the load balancer in a data center, has at least one address.
IPv4 addresses are 32 bits and written as four dotted decimals (192.168.1.1). The world ran out of unique IPv4 addresses years ago, which is why most home networks share one public IPv4 across every device using NAT. IPv6 addresses are 128 bits, written in hex with colons (2001:db8::1), and are plentiful enough to give every grain of sand on Earth its own.
For crawling and brand-data work, IPs matter for two reasons. Anti-bot systems rate-limit and ban by IP, which is why scrapers rotate through proxy pools. And IP-based geolocation lets servers decide which content (pricing, language, legal banner) to show, so a crawler in us-east-1 sees a different page than one routing through a residential IP in Germany.
In the wild
- →A scraper rotating through 1,000 residential IPs to avoid per-IP rate limits
- →A CDN routing the same URL to a different edge node based on the requesting IP
- →A login system flagging an account when it sees logins from geographically distant IPs in the same hour
How Brand.dev uses ip address
Endpoints in the Brand.dev API where this concept comes up directly.
FAQ
IPv4 vs IPv6?
IPv4 is older, smaller (32 bits, ~4 billion addresses), and universal; IPv6 is newer, vastly larger (128 bits), and now carries more than half of Google traffic. Most public services support both via dual-stack.
Can my IP address be traced?
It identifies a network endpoint, not a person. ISPs map IPs to subscribers, so with a court order law enforcement can link a public IP to an account. NATed home users share one public IP, which complicates the trace.
Why do scrapers care about IP rotation?
Servers count requests per IP and block above thresholds. Rotating through a pool of clean residential IPs distributes the load and looks like organic traffic.
Related terms
The successor to IPv4, using 128-bit addresses to provide a vastly larger address space and a few protocol simplifications.
The Domain Name System, the distributed database that translates human-readable domain names into the IP addresses computers actually route to.
The process of translating a hostname (like example.com) into the IP address a client uses to actually connect.
A server that forwards your network requests, presenting its own IP address to the destination instead of yours.
A proxy that routes your traffic through an IP address assigned by a consumer ISP, making your requests look like ordinary home users.
A Content Delivery Network, a globally distributed cache of edge servers that serves your assets from the location closest to each user.