Hosting Terms
What is IPv6?
IPv6 in plain English — the meaning, the comparison, and why it matters to anybody running a website.
Straight answer first
IPv6 is the replacement addressing scheme with an address space that will not run out, running side by side with the exhausted IPv4 internet.
The sections below open it up properly — how it works, why a site owner should care, and a concrete example of it doing its job.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
100+
Terms on the shelf
2 min
Typical read
Plain
English, we promise
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Its longer hexadecimal addresses, such as 2001:db8::1, settle the shortage permanently. AAAA records map names to them in DNS, and dual-stack setups answer on both protocols throughout the long changeover.
For a site owner it is mostly ambient. Where dual-stack hosting is switched on, visitors whose connections speak IPv6 are served over it automatically and nobody involved notices a thing.
IPv6, by comparison
Adding digits to the phone numbering plan so the country never runs out again. Old numbers keep ringing, new capacity is effectively endless, and modern handsets dial both formats without their owners thinking about it.
Keep that picture in mind and most of the documentation you will ever read on the subject stops being mysterious.
What is actually at stake
This is future-proofing that mostly happens to you rather than because of you. It is worth knowing when reading a DNS zone, setting up a server, or chasing the rare oddity that behaves differently depending on which protocol a visitor arrived over.
You do not need to work at this layer every day. You need to recognise it when it explains something, which is exactly the moment this page earns its keep.
One concrete example
A dual-stack site serves a mobile visitor over IPv6, because that is what their carrier runs natively, and an office visitor over IPv4. Same site, same content, different plumbing chosen per connection.
Multiply that example by every website on the internet and you have the concept's entire job description in one go.
Where you will meet it on our platform
On our hosting this largely looks after itself — the platform applies sensible defaults, and the panel hands you the controls when you want them. The concepts worth reading next: IP Address, A Record and DNS.
Mailboxes on your own domain are part of the plan, never an add-on sold back to you at checkout.
A glossary written by the people on the counter
Every confusing term in hosting turns into a support ticket sooner or later, so we defined the hundred most common ones properly, once, in the plain English we would use across the counter.
Backups run every day on every plan, and putting a file or a database back takes one click from the panel.
- 100+ terms, all in plain English
- Everyday comparisons and real examples
- Related concepts linked together
- Written by the people on the desk
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
Pictures that stick
Each concept gets a comparison you will still remember at the moment you actually need it.
Honest about what to skip
Most terms are recognise-level rather than operate-level, and the glossary says which is which.
Plain English first
Every term defined for people who run sites, not for other sysadmins — jargon translated rather than restated.
The next reads, mapped
Read on into IP Address and A Record — terms rarely stand alone, so the neighbours are linked.
One term, fully landed
IPv6 defined, pictured by comparison and placed in your own control panel — recognise-level in a single read.
The stakes spelled out
Not only what it is, but when it turns out to be the answer to a problem you are having.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Find it in your own account
Open the control panel and find where this concept lives — seeing it attached to your own site is what turns a definition into understanding.
- 2
Check what the defaults are
Confirm how your account has this set. It is usually right by default here, and now you will know rather than guess.
- 3
Follow the terms next door
Concepts travel in packs — IP Address, A Record and DNS finish this one's picture, and each is a two-minute read away.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- A 30-day money-back guarantee on every hosting plan
- SSH, Git and Composer on the plans built for developers
- Nothing added at setup — no joining fee, ever
- The Softaculous installer for one-click application setup
- Mailboxes that carry your own domain name
- Real people on the counter, every hour of every day
- WebP image optimisation built in and costing nothing
- A free SSL certificate on every plan, reissued before it lapses
- cPanel, the panel the rest of the trade already knows
- NVMe SSD storage on every shelf, not just the top one
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
Do I need to do anything about IPv6 myself?
Usually nothing whatsoever — hosting platforms handle dual-stack wherever it is enabled. The occasional job on your list: adding AAAA records when you manage a zone by hand, or switching IPv6 on for a VPS you administer yourself.
Why has IPv4 not simply been switched off?
Decades of equipment and software assume it, so the changeover runs by living alongside rather than by cutting over. Scarcity economics is what finishes the job slowly — IPv4 addresses now cost real money, and that concentrates minds.
What if the site outgrows the plan I bought?
You move up in place. Plan changes are made from the client area with no migration and no downtime, and the range runs from small shared accounts through VPS to whole dedicated servers. Growing becomes a line change on your account rather than a hunt for a new host.
How do I pay, and does it bill again on its own?
Orders go through a secure checkout by credit or debit card, and the renewal is taken at the same price you first paid. Every invoice sits in the client area for you to read, and switching auto-renewal off is a toggle in your account rather than a phone call.
Which control panel comes with the account?
cPanel, which the whole trade already knows. That means every tutorial online matches what you see, your backups restore onto any cPanel host anywhere, and what you learn here stays useful for life. Plesk and DirectAdmin are stocked on specific plans for anyone who prefers them.
Can I test changes somewhere safe first?
Yes — plans with staging let you clone the live site, work on the copy, then push it across when you are satisfied. It is the difference between hoping an update behaves and knowing that it does before any customer meets it.
Are backups included, and can I put one back myself?
A backup is taken daily on every plan, and the restore is yours to run from the panel in minutes — files, databases or both, at three in the morning without waiting on a ticket. Keeping your own copy offsite as well is never a bad habit, and nothing here stops you.
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