Hello,

I'm shopping for a web host, and I notice some offer a static IP, and others don't. Will a static IP help the performance of my site?

I will be using the new account as a "mirror" for a site I am hosting on a server at home, so the domain name would be like "mirror.domain.com". I wasn't sure if I would have to have an IP based web server to handle this kind of arrangement.

Anyway, any suggestions would be appreciated.

Originally posted by jeffwbent
Hello,

I'm shopping for a web host, and I notice some offer a static IP, and others don't. Will a static IP help the performance of my site?

I will be using the new account as a "mirror" for a site I am hosting on a server at home, so the domain name would be like "mirror.domain.com". I wasn't sure if I would have to have an IP based web server to handle this kind of arrangement.

Anyway, any suggestions would be appreciated.

A static IP won't do anything for connectivity, all you need one for is if you plan on installing your own ssl cert or do anonymous ftp from your site.

You don't need a static IP for your mirror site.

Hope that helps.

Thank-you, Steve. Yes, that helps.

Regards,

Jeff

I've found that static IP are helpfull to administer your website before your domain name propogates.

For example, say you want to set up a few PHP scriupts, but your domain name has not yet propogated. An IP would be useful so that you can still access your site via the WEB.

Of course, you could always ask you host to lend you a temporary IP for these purposes...good hosts will readily oblige.

You could always set up the servers dns within windows network settings , so that you view the site by domain name before it propagates. You can also usualy view the site by typing
http://masterdomain/~user/

or http://sharedIP/~user/

Hope that helps.

Of course you need a static IP! Who would host with someone that doesn't have a static IP? ;)

:)

Thanks dotcomsnz, for the tip about adding the info to the Windows network settings. That took care of the remaining concern about accessing before DNS propogates. :)