Sometimes, making sense of all the features offered by hosting providers can be a little difficult. One thing you might come across whilst looking for the right host is dedicated IP hosting. You might be wondering if it’s necessary, what the benefits are, and if you really need a dedicated IP address. This blog discusses all the ins and outs of it.
Let’s start with the basics!
What is an IP address?
IP stands for Internet Protocol, which is a unique sequence of numbers that is used to identify devices that connect to the internet. In addition to mobile devices and computers, the server where your website’s files are being stored also has it’s own unique IP address.
Most hosting providers offer variations of two types of web hosting: shared hosting and dedicated hosting. Shared IP addresses and dedicated IP addresses operate in the same way.
What is a Shared IP address?
Shared IP addresses are the most common type of IP addresses. With a shared IP address, multiple different domains reside on the same server – therefore, they all use the same IP address. This means that the server has some extra work to do: matching the user’s request to the right website.
What is a Dedicated IP address?
With a dedicated IP address, you are the only user of it. This means that it isn’t shared with any other domains – it’s exclusively yours. Your domain name and IP address are tied together. So, if you have a dedicated IP address, you can access your website by typing in the IP address or the domain name. However, you can also choose to serve multiple different sites on your dedicated IP address. You’re the one who’s in control of it.
Why should you have or rent your own dedicated IP address?
Sometimes having a dedicated IP address is helpful whilst in other cases it’s necessary. There are a couple of reasons why you should have or rent your own dedicated IP address:
1. Your website gets a lot of traffic and needs dedicated resources for good performance.
Websites with high-volume traffic probably already have dedicated hosting.
2. You need a high level of server control
Having a dedicated IP address will allow you to do a lot more with your server. You’ll have a lot more customization abilities when you have direct server access.
3. You are concerned about mass email deliverability.
If you’re using a shared IP address you could run into problems when sending emails. Whilst it doesn’t happen often, you run a risk when other users get the IP address blacklisted or banned. This could affect your email deliverability rates.
4. You need to be able to access your website directly via file transfer protocol (FTP) on a regular basis.
With your own dedicated IP address, you’ll be able to remotely access your server anytime you want. You won’t need to change the DNS settings to access the server.
5. You need to maintain a secure website via SSL certificate.
This is especially important for e-commerce sites where you want to protect the personal information of your customers with an SSL. In order to have an SSL certificate, you sometimes need to have a dedicated IP. Having an SSL certificate on your site will also enable you to upgrade to a secure HTTPS connection. This helps you to rank higher in search results of search engines.
6. You want to use third-party applications or scripts that require it.
Sometimes apps or applications require a dedicated IP address
We hope you now have a better understanding of shared and dedicated IP addresses, what the benefits are, and if you should upgrade to a dedicated IP address.
