Does having a dedicated IP address Actually Improve Your Rankings?
If you are faced with an issue like this one that I’ve put forward it’s likely that the first thing that pops out of your head is the idea of a neighborhood that isn’t good. I’ll discuss this, but there’s additional details you may find interesting. Let’s dig deep. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
“The Myth about Bad Neighborhoods”
Let’s begin with the poor neighborhoods because I’ve discussed it as a notion. It’s quite simple in concept too. The principle is this: when using shared hosting, you’re assigned an IP address that’s shared between all the websites on the shared server. For certain hosts, this could be five sites 20 sites, ten sites. For other hosts, specifically the more affordable hosts with loose conditions of service, it might be 100 or more sites 1000 sites or, in one instance from Google which I’ll link to in the near future, 26,000 websites. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
In the event that there are 1,000 websites on your shared server and 999 are spammy websites, porn sites, thin affiliates and other black-hat abusers it would seem like it would be easy to Google to fix the problem by delisting and/or degrading everything that is on the IP address. 99 bad websites removed and one good website deleted, it’s one small amount of collateral harm. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
The issue is the IP address itself is fairly simple to alter. Every web host has documentation that includes an article similar to this one that gives you directions on how to change the IP address for your website. It will take a few days to spread, most likely and spammers aren’t concerned about the time frame. A few hours of downtime between months of making money with their low-effort websites is a simple choice. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
Google doesn’t pay any the importance of IP addresses as a contributing factor to SEO, or even for spam in its own right precisely because of this. If they decide to blacklist IP addresses, they could run across a variety of problems. Good sites being removed along with the bad ones is likely their primary concern however, there’s also the possibility of sites that are spamming being removed and people buying space as the hosting provider recycles it. If they decide to block an IP with 100 bad websites on it the 100 sites go away and 100 positive sites are added in their place. they’d have to review the list to make sure that they are not on. This is a lot of work for a small advantage. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
The term that Google puts into its mouth direct is identical to the. Matt Cutts posted on his blog after people had a question on dedicated IPs and shared IPs. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
His article is from 2006 and references an article from 2003 which was the interview of Google’s director of technology. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
- “Google handles virtual hosted domains and hyperlinks the same way as domains that have distinct IP addresses. If your ISP uses virtual hosting properly there is no distinction between the two. However, we do observe a small percent of ISPs each month who misconfigure their virtual hosting. This could be the cause of this ongoing misconception .” Craig Silverstein – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
The myth he’s talking about is that IP addresses shared by multiple people are more harmful than dedicated or unique IP addresses. If you’re like me and you think the answer that was given in 2006 will not be relevant eleven many years on, I discovered an older version. Here’s the idea that there was a shared server that hosts 26K websites is revealed in this video by Matt Cutts’s 2010 interview.. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
- “I know that and Google is aware that when shared web hosting occurs and you’re not able to really determine or influence those who are on the network or class of subnet. Another thing to consider is that if you do something only on that class C IP or Class C subnet, spammers are quite savvy, and spammers will often change their location and move to a different IP address. It’s generally not the most effective method to deal with things .” – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
The author does note that the fact that it’s the only “good” website in a network of completely bad ones will be subject to more investigation. Google is likely to take a more detailed review of the website to determine if it’s someone who registered on a server that they had no clue about or if it’s an attempt by a spammer to use this site as a profit site for a private blog network or some other similar thing. In essence, by being the sole good site located in a shady area, you’re inviting further inquiry. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
If Google cannot come up with a reason to make a decision to penalize your site, being in a bad area alone isn’t enough to warrant the trick. It’s only if you’re using gray hat strategies or even a few minor black hat tricks that they’ll take a more harsh review of your site. It’s basically as a tiebreaker and there’s nothing more. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
If you’re in the market for another viewpoint, one that could be of interest for you could be Cloudflare. The method by which Cloudflare operates is to insert itself between the server and the user this means that your IP will be displayed as an Cloudflare IP that is shared with several sites and some of them aren’t the ones that you would want to connect to. Cloudflare states on their website FAQ that, generally speaking, you will not be penalized by using this type of public IP. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
Other risks associated with shared IP addresses
But, you aren’t going entirely risk-free in the event that you’re working with a shared server through the web hosting service. One reason is that it’s possible that the web host isn’t correctly configured, as was mentioned in the interview above. If the configuration of your host isn’t correct, you could be penalized for other websites. Most likely, you won’t get the benefits you would otherwise however, there are some potential problems that could arise. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
Additionally, you are at the risk from malware and being the victim of fraud.
In terms of security is concerned, you’re on shared server along with how many other sites. In the present, the most popular method to prevent this is to keep each website separated from the others with sandboxed machines. So, even when hackers infiltrate one website, they can discover an isolated server to cause destruction on. One site is destroyed and other sites that are on that server do not notice a problem. But, if your host isn’t using the proper segregation security, sandboxing and segregation any breach on the server could lead to an attack on all sites which use the sharing hosting. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
Even if sandboxing is put in place, and hackers don’t directly harm your website but they are able to consume server resources. This could mean that there are less resources available to your website. It will take longer to load and you could also become the victim of an DDoS attack directed at an individual. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
There could be issues that could arise from email fakes. Email addresses are like domain names in the sense that they can be employed to hide IP addresses. If you know the IP address for the website, you are able to typically access the website with no domain. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
I’m not an expert on the technical aspects of email however it is possible that anyone with access to the appropriate IP address can create fake emails that look legitimate and send phishing messages to people within your own company or your customers. There is also the possibility that someone is using your IP address to run the purpose of sending spam emails. If the IP address was included in a blacklist that is aimed at spam, your company could be affected by the process.
There is a way to fix this problem businesses are constantly blacklisted – however, it usually results in just a few days of frustration and limited email access within the organization. In any case this wastes many hours. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
The benefits of having a dedicated IP Address
One of the main advantages of having a designated IP address is the fact that it’s much simpler to setup SSL. In fact up to 2007 or then, it was impossible to create the SSL security certificate for a site that was hosted on shared hosting. SSL required an individual IP address since the certificate was only for the specific IP address. If you were hosting on a shared server and you were granted a certificate you’d be providing security to everyone who is on the server. It is like vouching for the credibility of neighbors that who you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting. “I’m certain they’re good people” isn’t an acceptable argument when they’re found eating human flesh or some other thing. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
The solution is known as SNI which stands for Name Indication for Server Name Indication. The first time it was implemented was in 2004 as an update to OpenSSL. The patch was ultimately added into the active edevelopment program in 2006 and then ported back to a wider population in 2007. A majority of servers and browsers support SNI from 2006 onwards, but some didn’t begin to support it until much later. The Blackberry browser didn’t allow it to be used until the year 2013 Apache was not able to adopt the feature until 2009, while Microsoft’s IIS was the first to adopt it in the year 2012. This is what I’m getting from the table. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
There is also the website speed issue. Like I said the fact that you are in a shared hosting environment implies that you share server resources an undetermined amount of other websites. If some of these websites use an excessive amount of resources, it could take away other websites. If a post posted on one website goes viral and causes a server crash that your site is also hosted on then your website is also down. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
The majority of servers work around this by placing resource caps on the websites that share the host. These caps are usually flexible, yet still low enough to ensure that there isn’t a shortage of resources for other sites. In general, the site may be unable to function before shutting the server offline while the server can then throttle traffic to protect other websites. – Dedicated Address Improve Rankings
Of course there are servers that aren’t properly configured There’s no way to know that until something goes wrong.
With an exclusive server and specific internet address you won’t need to be concerned about someone else taking advantage of your bandwidth or processing power. It’s just a matter of worrying about getting too popular and then crashing your computer.
It’s the reverse too. If your site goes viral or become the target of an DDoS assault, the internet host will likely reduce or block access to your website until things settle down. This is the case even on dedicated servers However, the thresholds are lower for shared servers, since they have multiple sites to guard. A single post that goes viral with a dedicated host can be fine, however on shared hosting , it could shut your website down for long periods of time.
There are many other advantages of having with a dedicated IP. Sometimes, for instance there are a few of scripts or older programs which require an exclusive IP to perform. In the event that your IP addresses are shared, your program might not know how to get to the proper website.
Utilize the resources you have been given.
Many of the problems that arise associated with server sharing are simpler to address with dedicated servers. If you’re on an IP shared by a third party and your email stop working then you must consider whether you’ve been banned because of something you did or by the actions of someone else who is on your server. If you’re using an IP address that is dedicated then you know you were responsible for the issue and can correct the issue right away.
In general it is possible to use shared servers when the cost of dedicated hosting and IP are excessive for the budget however, you could run into a variety of issues that you would not otherwise encounter. It’s all about the host of course, and also how they adhere to their ToS against any illegal activities.
The only way you can be in a “bad neighborhood” could be a problem for you it’s if on the line. It’s more difficult to conceal your actions that are black hat while there’s scrutiny already on your actions; you risk losing security by hiding. If you’re sticking with white hat fashions, however it’s possible that you’ll be perfectly fine in any case.
