Yup. The IP address is resolvable into names of domains so for example www.mudcat.org translates on my machine to 207.103.108.101 which is the IP address of the site on whatever machine delivered it to me.

The reason we have this system is so that every domain can be identified world-wide and referenced. The numbers are allocated to service providers by the www powers-that-be so the numbers you get allocated will all be from your ISP's pool and will change as the numbers are recycled.

Internal networks also use the same numbering system so network computers will also have IP addresses but these will either be allocated by a server or fixed for the machine.

So depending on the context, we can think of the IP address as either the address of a domain on the internet or a the address of a machine. If a machine has more than one network card, it will have more than one IP address.

We tend to use human readable names like mudcat.org because it's easier to use than 207.103.108.101.

If you want to know who has the various IP addresses you can ferret around using some of the sites listed in Google when you search on "IP Address". Of course, there's more to life...

End of nerdy message.