This section goes over how the IP (Internet Protocol) addressing system really works, what a dedicated IP address is and why you may need it and what the benefits are.
When you type in an address like http://redstorm7.com, your request may go to one of thousands of domain name servers across the world. Most likely, though, your own internet service provider has one of these domain name servers right where they provide their service to you from.
What these domain name servers do is match the name http://redstorm7.com with its correct numerical equivalent, which in this case is 162.220.167.62. But when you type in 162.220.167.62 it shows an error page. Why? Because that number is not a dedicated IP address. It is an address for the redstorm7.com server that contains many other domains/sites.
So a regular website relies on these domain name servers to be working 100% of the time. If they go down or something happens to them your site is not reachable (as happened in 2021 with the Akamai Servers wordlwide when they were attacked with a DDoS attack). Unless you get a dedicated IP address for your site.
A dedicated IP address is a unique number in this format - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx - that is only for your site and no one else's. When one gets hosting one normally gets shared hosting where one IP address is shared by many different sites. It can vary from the low 10s into the hundreds of sites that will be sharing the same IP address as your site. So to have a dedicated IP address makes your site more robust and easier and faster to access (as the server doesn't have to match the browser request to the correct domain name).
But there is a more important reason to have a dedicated IP address. If you have a regular domain and a shared IP address the entry for your domain in the domain name server can be flagged for any reason. What this means is that TPTB (the powers that be) can screw with your site if they don't like what you are doing. Once your site's name is flagged it disappears off the 'net.
Jim Stone's site is the first one I know of that had a dedicated IP address as the address that showed in the address bar. He did this years ago and this is where I learnt of this. He got heavily attacked by the black hats when he wrote the exposé of the Fukushima tragedy.
[Note: As of early 2022 the JimStone website has reverted back to using a regular domain name for his site due to various reasons, part of which was to do with moving his main site off of the Icelandic servers and onto servers elsewhere when the Icelandic hosting company, http://orangewebsite.com/, shut down his site over the exposé of Hunter Biden pictures and the horrid nature of that man.]
It used to be the case where quite a few hosting companies provided a dedicated IP address to you for free. All you had to do was either ask for it or it was already there for you to use on your main domain account (if you had more than one domain in your hosting plan). Now a dedicated IP is an extra add-on cost. There is one company (Hostwinds.com) that offers a 'free' dedicated IP with all of its hosting plans but they are more expensive than other plans one can find - in most cases nearly double the cost of what one can get elsewhere. So its not really free. If you are searching for a hosting company specifically for a dedicated IP address you will need to really dig for that info as most don't show it or advertise it. The best thing to do is to do a chat session with the company you are interested in hosting with and ask them about a dedicated IP address.
Interserver.net is one of the very few that have a dedicated IP address with a very inexpensive $6 a month package with 1TB of storage space. But it is not easy to find. You you need to go to the top of the page hover over/click on Cloud VPS and go to the bottom left corner of the resulting drop down menu and choose 'Storage'. Scroll a bit down and click the 'Buy Now' button. You will have to set up an account, etc, but follow the steps and make sure you double check everything while going through the sign up process and also AFTER you have purchased the package as it can be a bit confusing. You need to stay on top of things and get the company to install the free version of Direct Admin. This can be all done via online chat. But make sure you persist as their customer service leaves a lot to be desired. But once everything is up and running it is great.
Now that we've dealt with the main, external, aspects of your site we move on to Step 5 - The final step in bomb-proofing your site.