Dedicated Server or Shared Hosting? How can you tell?

Question

I understand this might be a difficult question to answer from the research I have done so far, but here it goes:

I don't have access to my so called dedicated server. This is managed by a 3rd party business. However I would like to try and clarify if my site is having the benefits of being on a dedicated server.

As recently I decided to use several web hosting tools such as www.webhostinghero.com/who-is-hosting/ When entering my domain name, I noticed more than 10 other sites (which have been created by the same web design agency) appear.

The first 9 digits of the IP address are the same (i.e 222.222.222.x) for every website. Is it these 9 digits that defines the address for this server?

So, could this mean my site is actually hosted on a shared server?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Normally all people who share the same area code as you are not your neighbors but live in your house, right?

An IPv4 IP-address is a 32 bit number, typically written down as four decimal octets: [0-255].[0-255].[0-255].[0-255]. If the ip-addresses of those other sites are exactly the same the one for your website, then odds are that your site is running on a shared environment.

If the last octet differs, i.e. your wesite resolves to 10.0.0.2 and the others for example have 10.0.0.3 and 10.0.0.4, then those sites are typically in the same network. They can each be on their own neighboring servers, but it also possible to have multiple IP-addresses assigned to a single server. There is no conclusive answer to be found there.

You typically get what you pay for, but if you don't trust your supplier and you don't get straightforward answers to simple technical questions, you might reconsider who you do business with...