WHY YOU SHOULD HAVE A DEDICATED IP ADDRESS?

Digital transformation has marked a significant change in the way services are acquired, managed and provisioned to respond to business needs. The boom in e-trading business has bestowed them with new vistas of opportunities. Subsequently, sparking competition and emphasizing on the dire need for integrating high-security components, tools, and techniques that can mitigate errors (both technical and manual flaws), and bridge the performance gap.

At one swoop it has compelled e-commerce proprietors to adopt dedicated IP address in order to timely deliver their products/services in the expeditious and most secured manner. Now the question that strikes in mind – what is dedicated IP all about.

According to Wikipedia, Internet Protocol (IP) is a core communications protocol that belongs to the Internet protocol suite for transmitting datagrams across network boundaries. The IP facilitates delivery of packets from source point to the destination on the basis of the IP addresses assigned to the packet headers. Besides, it allows internetworking and establishes the Internet. To put it into perspective, its work is similar to zip code and post code that routes the users to the right destination.  

Moving ahead, IP address is a unique numerical digital allocated to each device that utilizes Internet Protocol to commence communication. The address defines the destination sources whereas the router shows the way to connect. A business is said to have a dedicated IP when it is dedicatedly and solely assigned to a single hosting account.

This blog explores the various benefits of embracing dedicated IP’s and debunks the myths allied to it with respect to SEO ranking:

An IP is typically segregated on the number of hosting accounts they are allied to – shared IP and a dedicated IP.  For instance, in shared hosting services, resources are pooled and used up by multiple users hosted on the similar physical server with the same virtual-name based IP working for all. In contrast to this, in dedicated server hosting, a dedicated IP is assigned to one web hosting account, which truly eliminates the sharing notion.

Myth Related to Dedicated IP

Having a dedicated IP or not continues to remain a subject of debate.  There are still many contemplating to know the impact of a dedicated IP address on a website performance. In this regard, let’s see what Google has to say:

According to this giant search engine platform, a dedicated IP will not give any boost in SEO rankings.  The rankings are evaluated on a host of factors including the speed at which a particular web page loads. It completely depends on the way a business has optimized their website(s). Hardly matters whether your website has a dedicated IP or the static one, specifically for SEO reasons. However, there are other legitimate reasons that elucidate the significance of a dedicated IP:

SSL Certificate: E-commerce websites need SSL for collecting credit card information. A SSL validates the authenticity of your secure transaction, subsequently giving your end-users a sense of confidence that they are on the right platform.  Usually, a web hosting provider allow businesses to integrate SSL on a shared IP, which often entails compatibility issues with the older web browser versions.

When a user tries reaching a website, a message – ‘untrusted connection’ flashes on the end-user’s screen. This in turn, sometimes takes your users to your competitors’ site. In order to ensure smooth functioning and curtail such issues, having a dedicated IP proves a beneficial bet.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP): FTP is a standard network protocol that enables clients to transfer data from one computer system to another in the most reliable manner. To set up a FTP site, specific software needs to be installed than only files can be shared, uploaded and edited. With dedicated IP, you can access your website even when the domain is not accessible.

Unbarred Accessibility: Static IP grants global access to the users. Thus, data /website can be accessed from anywhere, anytime. Indeed, you can setup the connection irrespective of the fact what IP you have. However, it is indispensable to have a fixed IP address to manage it or else you won’t be able to gain access to the programs when your computer refreshes its dynamic address. Above all, dedicated IP address provides the capability to access server directly without making any modification in the DNS settings for the domain name.

Brand Presence: It is clear from the above points that having your website run over a shared IP address may give rise to unwarranted issues and it can also have direct impact on your email service. Bad neighbor’s activity can also blacklist affect your email service to a great extent. Here, using a dedicated IP for email keep your email service at bay against all such nuisances.

Greater Stability: It goes without saying that when multiple websites share a single IP address, host of difficulties follow its march. In shared IP address, if one of the website gets blacklisted owing to spamming activity, there are possibilities that your website also gets foiled due the same. In this situation, having a dedicated IP can mitigate such nasty issues.

Apart from this there are certain applications that deny running on your server without a dedicated IP address.

To sum up the all, although a dedicated IP address has nothing to do with the SEO rankings, but the benefits that it facilitates to its users in terms of security, accessibility, and business repute can have a significant impact on holistic development and expansion of a business.