Mirrored websites

It's not a "copy"; a browser that connects to your IP address is contacting your site. Anyone is free to point their domain name at any IP address they want, even yours.

Thanks for the explanation, I understand it now. How has he been given the same ip as me, and how do I stop it happening in the future?

Thanks

It's probably because they had the same IP as you before, then removed their Linode (or changed IPs), which freed that IP that was then given to you.

@vernonpurcell2000:

Thanks for the explanation, I understand it now. How has he been given the same ip as me, and how do I stop it happening in the future?

Thanks

To further clarify, this doesn't mean that someone else has the same IP address, that's not possible. But if someone had the address previously, they may have pointed the DNS entry for another domain name to the same IP address. You might want to click here for more information on DNS.

I ran the other domain through a reverse look up and it gives the ip address the same as mine.

This can be done by setting DNS records up to use your IP address. This is easily done and normally happens because of a couple of reasons:

1. They used to own your IP address and served a website to that IP, then stopped caring for whatever reason, but their records still point to your IP

2. You have your website as your default domain. This would mean that anyone going to your IP address will see that website, even if you have multiple sites on your server.

These two reasons combined will have their domain showing your server's default domain's content. It's really not a bad thing and would not cause issues, it should be able to be ignored.

I hope this explains the matter!