The web is changing every day, and new things become popular when others are from the past, and no one will talk about them anymore. But, search engine ranking is still one of the most important topics, and lots of people are still confused between things like a dedicated IP from their shared hosting, and SEO.
In many cases, newbies and even advanced webmasters can make the wrong decision, and lose lots of benefits that can help their sites. Today, I’ll talk about the cases when your site should get its own dedicated IP address.
Cases to get your own dedicated IP address
Spam and insecure sites on the same server
This is the first case when you should ask your hosting company for a dedicated IP. It’s not a choice, but you really need that. Google scans every site on the web and detects if it contains malware and unsafe codes. Then, it sends warnings to its algorithm, and all the sites that are hosted on the same IP will be penalized.
This is a logical action from the most secure search engine, it needs your site to be protected and clean, from any malicious codes.
All the shared hosting services divide the server resources, and IP between hundreds, if not, thousands, of sites. That’s why they offer cheap prices.
When it comes to security and safety, you need a dedicated IP without a doubt. You still have the choice to host without a shared IP if all the domains are safe.
Just enter your domain name, and it will scan the full server to find all hosted domains. Then, use Google to find out if a site is penalized or not. All you need to do is enter the site name, and if you can’t find any result, then, probably, it’s probably a red signal that needs more investigation to find the nature of that website.
Unfortunately, in many cases, spam blogs owned by the same person can be a dangerous source that shares the same IP as your site. You should make sure that all the hosted sites are not penalized by Google as spam.
When you need an SSL
Google started using SSL as a ranking signal, which means a better ranking anyway. But, the percentage and the importance of that signal are not as important as other factors. However, if your site has a checkout page for payments, a user registration page, and so on, then, you should use a secure connection, and that can be created based on a dedicated IP.
So, you need your own IP in order to get that SSL. But, remember that SSL will be popular in the next few years, and the majority of sites will be using it for security and trust.
For the moment, SSL is a lightweight signal to give the webmaster the time to switch from the HTTP. But, Google will give that ranking factor more weight in the future, and it will be important as the site speed, and, even more.
The website content is still the most important ranking signal. Anyway, if you don’t want to switch to the SSL actually, you will need to do that in the future.
Dedicated servers
Of course, when you need a dedicated server, the server needs its own static IP. You don’t need to do anything here, because your hosting provider will do all the work and add the IP address.
When things become unclear, especially, with some IP addresses that are reported as a source of spam used by other sites in the past, then, you should ask the company to change your IP for a new one. That’s the only way to keep your site and protect it from the penalty.
As you can see, there are many cases when you should think about a dedicated IP for your blog or website. But, with the importance of SSL, and the big problems with security and trust, having that IP is a good option that can help to protect your hard work from spam and unsafe domain names.
It allows you to look professional in the eyes of Google and people, at the same time. The price of a dedicated IP address, on average, is $24 per year. It only depends on your host and what options they have. I always recommend HostGator for all kinds of websites that you want to host professionally.
