If you’re serious about web hosting you’ve probably done some research on IP addresses, SEO, and other things pertaining to your website.<\/p>\n
During this research it’s likely you’ve found conflicting information on how to maximize your website visibility and performance.<\/p>\n
This is normal and expected when you’re dealing with anything online related. The magnitude of the Internet gives users many solutions to the same problem.<\/p>\n
One question website owners often bring up is the viability of shared hosting. Is shared hosting safe? Will it effect my SEO? Why is it so much cheaper than a dedicated IP address?<\/p>\n
All of those questions are important and easily answered with a little background knowledge on exactly how shared hosting works.<\/p>\n
Let’s take a look at what you need to know about having a shared IP address.<\/p>\n
Let’s start with the absolute basics. An IP address<\/a> is the real web address of a website or server.<\/p>\n Domain names like “apple.com” don’t actually tell your browser where to access information. Instead, IP addresses formatted like 222.222.22.2 designate the correct server.<\/p>\n In shared hosting, your website is still assigned an IP address, but that address is also assigned to many other websites hosted on the same server.<\/p>\n This means that the actions of one bad seed can affect things like your SEO and inclusion on email blacklists. Therefore, it is wise to enable email blacklist monitoring<\/a> to quickly detect if your shared IP address is flagged<\/p>\n However, because you’re giving up a dedicated IP, you monthly bills are much cheaper with shared hosting.<\/p>\n It forms something of a risk\/reward scenario. Are you willing to take the plunge into shared security and reputation? Is the risk reward worth it?<\/p>\n These are all questions that require their own scenario based on your specific needs.<\/p>\n Emails sent from your website, “yourwebsitehere.com,” use your IP address to assign a location to your email.<\/p>\n It works sort of like a return mailing address. Your unique (or shared) IP lets incoming servers know where the message is coming from.<\/p>\n This can cause issues when sharing an IP with other users.<\/p>\n People sometimes abuse emails as marketing technique and send out what is commonly known as “spam.” As we’re sure you’re aware, everyone hates spam.<\/p>\n This includes email hosting<\/a> companies such as Google. What Google does to avoid spam is blacklist (block) email from known spamming addresses (IPs).<\/p>\n Sometimes this inadvertently causes your emails to get caught in the blacklist. What’s worse, the blacklist is gmail wide; meaning no emails you send to any gmail address get through.<\/p>\n However, this doesn’t mean that all shared IP addresses are bad. Good shared hosts will monitor for email spam and terminate the contract of those responsible.<\/p>\n Website owners can also use a third party mail hosting provider to send email through a dedicated “email IP” address.<\/p>\n Your new dedicated IP is linked only to your reputation and thus isn’t in danger of blacklisting.<\/p>\n Many people worry about security issues<\/a> when sharing an IP address. While these concerns are valid, they’re probably a little overblown.<\/p>\n Quality web hosts don’t have many security issues. Why? Because most of the Internet utilizes shared IP addresses.<\/p>\n If you’re worried about security, ask your potential host these things.<\/p>\n Any reputable web host will answer these questions without hesitation.<\/p>\n If they pass this little test, you’re no more secure with a dedicated IP address than with their shared IP.<\/p>\n The only people who need a dedicated IP for security purposes are large corporations with valuable data at stake.<\/p>\n If you fall into this category, you can’t take any risk if an unexpected security breach does occur.<\/p>\n It’s smarter to just pay for the dedicated IP address and mitigate any and all security risk that might arise.<\/p>\n The entire point of maintaining a website is to draw in visitors, views, clicks; whatever you’d like to call the people who view your pages.<\/p>\n You’re probably inclined to believe that SEO is extremely important to businesses large and small, and you’re correct.<\/p>\n Search engine optimization is an enormous market consisting of digital marketers who spend their days dissecting Google’s algorithms and creating relevant content.<\/p>\n Website owners need SEO marketers just as much as the SEO marketers need website owners.<\/p>\n You might wonder, what’s the have to do with my share IP address? Well, there’s a persistent myth that shared IP addresses negatively affect SEO.<\/p>\n We’re here to tell you that myth is entirely false. All other things notwithstanding, dedicated IP address do no more for your SEO than a shared IP.<\/p>\n However, there are some things available only to dedicated IP users that can help your SEO.<\/p>\n For instance, SSL certificates are used to provide security over e-commerce transactions. Google has publicly stated that SSL certificates do increase SEO<\/a>.<\/p>\n Turns out, these certificates are only available to websites with a dedicated IP address.<\/p>\n Dedicated IP address also help websites load faster. Less server data means an easier time returning browser requests.<\/p>\nEmail<\/h2>\n
Security<\/h2>\n
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Search Engine Optimization<\/h2>\n