{"id":3571,"date":"2011-06-22T14:07:41","date_gmt":"2011-06-22T18:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/?p=3571"},"modified":"2023-03-11T15:22:58","modified_gmt":"2023-03-11T19:22:58","slug":"converting-from-ipv4-to-ipv6-what-does-this-mean-for-your-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/2011\/converting-from-ipv4-to-ipv6-what-does-this-mean-for-your-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Converting from IPv4 to IPv6: what does this mean for your website?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Converting from IPv4 to IPv6: what does this mean for your website?<\/h2>\n<p>Changing addresses can be scary. What if your street suddenly gets named Psycho Path? Or Slaughterhouse Drive? Due to the growing number of web pages and devices, the internet is converting from the IPv4 system to the IPv6 system, which means that every web address will change. However, this shift doesn\u2019t have to be as scary. In fact, most internet users won\u2019t even be aware that it has taken place. If you own a website, there are still a few things you might want to know.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-45166 size-medium lazyload\" title=\"Internet Cartoon\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/assets\/Internet-Cartoon-300x206-1-300x190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"190\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/190;\" \/><br \/>\nEvery page on the web and every device linking to it has an IP address. This IP address is how your computer knows that when you click on a link to ebay.com, you\u2019re taken somewhere you want to go, rather than somewhere random. If you have a website, it has an address like this. If you don\u2019t know what it is you should be fine, you\u2019re paying a web host to keep track of it for you. However, this address is host specific, meaning that when you change web hosts you\u2019ll change addresses as well. A good host will handle these details for you, and most people identify a site by its domain name, so you shouldn\u2019t worry about this too much.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-45167 size-medium lazyload\" title=\"IPv4\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/assets\/IPv4-300x206-1-300x190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"190\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/190;\" \/>Previously the internet used the IPv4 system, in which each address was a 32 bit number using dots to separate the nodes. An example of an IPv4 address would be: 123.123.123.123. This system allowed for 4.3 billion addresses to exist. For a long time this was more than enough. But since every single page and every single device has to have one, and bundles of addresses have been sold to large companies, we were able to burn through this amount fairly quickly. Although there was an IPv5, the system was never put into place and is now forgotten in cyberspace. Instead, we have slowly been implementing the IPv6 system.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-45168 size-medium lazyload\" title=\"IPv6\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/assets\/IPv6-300x206-1-300x190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"190\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/190;\" \/>IPv6 is a 128 bit system. As a result, it allows for there to be 2128 unique addresses, which is over 340 undecillion. An impressive statistic is that, \u201cwe could assign an IPv6 address to EVERY ATOM ON THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH, and still have enough addresses left to do another 100+ earths.\u201d (Steve Leibson). The increase in space is largely due to the change in address format. IPv6 uses letters in addition to words and is longer. An example of an IPv6 address would be: 4aae:17a1:1a23:45:179:a8ff:12fe:cf67. The larger capacity not only allows for more websites and devices, but also allows efficient aggregation of subnet routing prefixes to occur at routing nodes. Basically this means that website traffic can all be routed faster, and web pages are pulled up quicker.<\/p>\n<p>The switch from IPv4 to IPv6 should be fairly smooth. Google has made the plan to switch over to IPv6 for a day or two just to test the waters before a complete shift. Even after IPv4 addresses are no longer accepted, websites not in IPv6 will be glitchy, but not unreachable. In addition, if you don\u2019t have a website, all you need to know is that we\u2019re gradually changing from an IPv4 system to an IPv6 system and little else matters. If you do have a website, your web host most likely will make the change for you. If you\u2019re hosting your own website however, you probably need to get on the ball. For most people, this transition shouldn\u2019t be scary. Internet users should instead be looking forward to higher speed internet and more flexibility.<\/p>\n<p><em>Don&#8217;t forget to <a href=\"http:\/\/andysowards.com\/blog\/feed\">Subscribe to the feed<\/a> for future Tech Resource posts!! and follow\/like us on twitter <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/andysowards\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@andysowards<\/a> and facebook <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/andysowardsfan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@andysowardsfan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Converting from IPv4 to IPv6: what does this mean for your website? Changing addresses can be scary. What if your street suddenly gets named Psycho Path? Or Slaughterhouse Drive? Due<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":45167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2339,1],"tags":[3291,3283,228,311,70,685,3282,3290,3284,3286,3285,2022,3287,182,986,220,3288,3289],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Converting from IPv4 to IPv6: what does this mean for your website?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Converting from IPv4 to IPv6: what does this mean for your website? Changing addresses can be scary. 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What if your street suddenly gets named Psycho Path?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/2011\/converting-from-ipv4-to-ipv6-what-does-this-mean-for-your-website\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daily Business Resources for Entrepreneurs, Web Designers, &amp; Creatives by Andy Sowards\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/andysowardsfan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-22T18:07:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-11T19:22:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/assets\/IPv4-300x206-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"206\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cameron Albin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@andysowards\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@andysowards\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Cameron Albin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/2011\/converting-from-ipv4-to-ipv6-what-does-this-mean-for-your-website\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/2011\/converting-from-ipv4-to-ipv6-what-does-this-mean-for-your-website\/\",\"name\":\"Converting from IPv4 to IPv6: what does this mean for your website?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/2011\/converting-from-ipv4-to-ipv6-what-does-this-mean-for-your-website\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/2011\/converting-from-ipv4-to-ipv6-what-does-this-mean-for-your-website\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/assets\/IPv4-300x206-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-22T18:07:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-11T19:22:58+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/18ce4c1afb0cddce183f03a148d29758\"},\"description\":\"Converting from IPv4 to IPv6: what does this mean for your website? 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