Over the course of many years there have been ongoing discussions by industry experts and SEOs (Search Engine Optimizers) regarding Dedicated IPs. During the course of these years, there has also been false information published online by so called “experts”. In this article we’ll cover some common questions surrounding the topic of whether or not, as a website owner, you should consider having a Dedicated IP address for your website.
- What is an IP Address?
- Improve Your SEO / Organic Rankings
- Email Deliverability
- Dedicated IP for a SSL Certificate
1. What is an IP address?
In layman’s terms, an IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique string or set of numbers, separated by periods, that identifies a computer or digital device allowing that computer or device to communicate with another over the Internet.
For example, when you connect to the Internet while at home, your ISP (Internet Service Provider) has assigned a specific IP address to you. Most commonly, you’ll be assigned a static IP address. However, sometimes providers also assign a dynamic IP address; this means that your IP address changes on occasion at random. We won’t get into the difference of a static and dynamic IP address in this article, though.
In the domain and web hosting world, an IP address is also used to identify a server or domain name. Let’s take your domain name for example. A domain name is a user-friendly name associated to an IP address. Instead of having to remember a tricky IP address such as 46.57.156.34 to access your domain on the web, you can type your domain name (e.g., peopleshost.com), a friendlier version of that IP address, into the browser which is a lot easier to remember.
Simply put, think of an IP address as a physical address but for the web.
2. Improving your Site’s SEO and Organic Rankings
There’s much confusion about whether or not a Dedicated IP Address will help boost your SEO efforts.
Despite what many SEO gurus, specialists, consultants, or agencies may try to tell or convince you, a Dedicated IP address will not boost your organic rankings or improve your website’s overall SEO profile. In regards to shared hosting, there has been much concern stemming from the idea that being on a shared server with another website that spams or engages in other shady or “blackhat” practices would harm your website’s organic rankings. This is completely false and has been confirmed by many sources as well as Google (Matt Cutts) in previous years.
Google and other Search Engines (SEs) do not blacklist a website based on the Shared IP address of the server that website is hosted on. Search engines will blacklist a website by the actual domain name.
3. Email Deliverability
If you’re on a shared hosting plan, one major concern may be the fact that another customer on the server you’re website is hosted on may trigger your server’s mail IP address to be blacklisted. This wouldn’t harm your website’s organic rankings or SEO efforts, but it would affect your email deliverability (temporarily) and the reputation of that mail server’s IP address. If you use your shared hosting account to manage email on your domain and that server’s IP address is blacklisted, you will not be able to send email until the IP address has been removed from any of the known blacklists.
Here at PeoplesHost, we monitor our IP ranges very closely. In addition to our monitoring efforts, we also set our hourly outgoing email limit much lower than most other shared web hosting providers. If you need higher limits, we are more than happy to discuss your options. This helps us protect other shared hosting customers on the same server from spammers who could potentially cause a mail server’s IP address to be blacklisted and harm the reputation of that IP address. In the event your server’s mail IP address is blacklisted, we would submit IP remediation requests to address the issue.
4. Dedicated IP Address for A SSL Certificate
Before SNI (Server Name Indication), you may have considered a Dedicated IP address for your SSL Certificate. SNI technology addresses this issue by having the client send the name of the virtual domain as part of the TLS negotiation; otherwise referred to as the handshaking process–a connection established between two entities with a set of rules before normal communication over the channel begins.
All of this fancy talk just means that our servers are able to serve the correct SSL Certificate for the domain being requested.
Conclusion
If you’re on a shared environment, you may want to consider a Dedicated IP to ensure that your email deliverability isn’t affected by anyone else on that server. Often times, individuals or businesses also practice link farming or other sorts of link schemes to help pass link juice from one sites to another. Search Engines are well aware of these link farming practices and schemes. The best way to improve your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is by creating high-quality content and relevant link backs organically through time.
For most people considering a Dedicated IP address, you most likely don’t need to worry about getting one. However, you can order a Dedicated IP Address at PeoplesHost if you decide that you want one for your website by submitting a ticket through your billing account.