Web Hosting Dedicated Hosting

Shared IP vs. Static IP for user from China, Why there are different?

I have a website that had shared IP and hosted in USA before. It worked fine one month ago. But one day people from China couldn’t access my site. They got an error, “The page cannot be found”. There is no problem for USA user. Then my hosting service told me I need static IP. So I upgraded my IP and pay more money. Now my website is with dedicated IP. People from China can visit my site again. The problem goes away. Dose anybody know why? Do you have better solution?

Public Comments

1. A dynamic IP address (what you are referring to as shared) is useful when your device initiates connections to others. A static IP address is needed, along with it's optional DNS entries, for others to initiate connections to you. The target of the proposed traffic must always have a static IP if it is to consistently work. The source can be anywhere in the world and it does not matter.
2. When you are hosting on a shared IP, it simply means that other websites can be hosted on the same IP address. Most DNS servers nowadays (which handle the assignment of a particular domain name to an IP address) can handle it, and since IP blocks can be expensive, having one shared among dozens of other sites is often the way to go for web hosting providers. Unfortunately, I think someone who was using the IP address ran afoul of China's internet policies and managed to get it banned by their nationwide firewall. This means that your site and every other one hosted on that IP can no longer be seen by user's in that country. With a static IP, you get a new address that likely has not been banned, and you can continue doing business as usual - and under your own watch.