All devices on the World Wide Web are identified by a special number called an IP address, such as 123.123.123.123. When you have a site, the domain that you type in order to open it is for your convenience, but the server where the site files are still has an IP address. Because there are far more sites and devices than there are IP addresses, all of the shared website hosting servers have a number of sites under the same IP, while using a dedicated server you'll be given a dedicated IP as well. Even in the first case though, you are able to get a dedicated IP for your websites and host them on a shared server. One benefit would be that you will get superior search engine positions as a dedicated IP usually means a quicker loading site. What's more, you need such an IP when you would like to acquire an SSL certificate for your website and shield the info that your visitors submit on it.