Overview

Every device connected to the internet — from personal laptops to massive web servers — is assigned a unique numerical label called an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

Types of IP Addresses

• IPv4: The traditional format consisting of four numbers separated by periods (e.g., 192.0.2.1).
• IPv6: The newer alphanumeric format designed to prevent address exhaustion (e.g., 2001:db8::ff00:42:8329).

The Role of Domain Names

While computers communicate efficiently using strings of numbers, human brains struggle to memorize numerical IP addresses for every website we visit. Domain names act as a user-friendly abstraction layer, mapping easy-to-remember words to complex server IP addresses via the Domain Name System (DNS).