Avoid Payday Loan Websites with a Shared IP Address

Posted by on Nov 5, 2006 in Tips

Avoid Payday Loan Websites with a Shared IP Address

Before doing business with an online payday lender, always check their IP address using a WHOIS service with Reverse IP.

It is a valuable clue that can be used to weed out search engine spam sites that waste your time and sites set up by identity thieves that put your personal information at risk.

Let’s learn a little bit more about IP addresses and why you should always avoid payday loan websites that share an IP address…

  • What is an IP Address?

    An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique number that identifies a machine connected to the internet. It consists of four numbers separated by dots. For example, the IP address of Online Payday Loans is 207.58.152.69. This number identifies the server we use to host our website. Since this number would be difficult for people to memorize, a domain name (www.online-payday-loans.org) is assigned to this IP address.

  • Dedicated vs. Shared IP Address

    A dedicated IP address only contains one domain name. For example, www.online-payday-loans.org is the only domain name assigned to our IP address (207.58.152.69) so it would be considered a dedicated IP address.

    A shared IP address is one that has many domain names assigned to it. Sometimes, a single IP address may have dozens of domain names assigned to it. These domains all share the same IP address.

    A dedicated IP address is always more expensive than a shared IP address

  • Shared IP is a Red Flag

    Shared IP address is a red flag that you may be dealing with a search engine spammer, identity thief or publisher/affiliate middleman, especially if there are hundreds of websites sharing one IP address.

    IP addresses cost money. It is not a lot of money – sometimes as little as an extra $1 per month in addition to the regular hosting fees (which will also cost more when using a dedicated IP address). Actual lenders with capable IT staff will always opt for a dedicated IP address.

    Search engine spammers, identity thieves and publisher/affiliate middlemen, on the other hand, register hundreds or thousands of domain names in the hopes of netting unsuspecting borrowers. In most cases, they put these domain names on a shared IP address because it is much cheaper to do so. For example, we found one payday loan spammer with over 800 domain names on a single IP address!

To protect your personal information from identity thieves and avoid wasting time on search engine spammers, please avoid payday loan websites that share an IP address.

Dedicated IP address is usually a good sign that you are dealing with an actual lender but should never be used as the only criteria to establish legitimacy. Always examine other criteria and check the user-submitted ratings in our list of payday lenders.

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