hello everyone,

My web hosting provider allows me to elect whether to use a dedicated IP or a shared one.

So, what extra benefits I gain from a dedicated IP?
Will it be faster than on a shared one?

Additionally, I want to host my DNS with my registrar (enom). If my hosting is on a shared IP, will this cause any problems?


Thank you.

Hi, You will see no performance difference.
The only reason someone would need a dedicated IP would be to host a secure certificate (for ecommerce), an anonymous FTP server, or for virtual nameservers. Otherwise, you will not need it.

Good luck,

If you also have a dedicated IP you will have the ability to have SSL under your domain...

(e.g: https://secure.yourdomain.com)

I remember I was reaching my inbox using my IP number rather than domain name after @ sign when DNS had some problems.

Also I heard from somewhere, some directory/search services index your site using your IP number as the key field.

While a non-dedicated IP address may have historically been a problem with some search engines, it is not likely to ever be an issue today. The search engine vendors are fairly adept with keeping pace with technology and the Internet is just plain running out of numerical Ipv4 addresses.

You will want a dedicated IP address if you need your own SSL certificate, but other than that you should not have any issues with a shared IP. It is only going to be a matter of time before the web browsers and web servers support shared IP addresses for SSL certificates.

Best regards,
Frank Rietta

In terms of hosting, you only need a dedicated IP address for true anonymous FTP, your own SSL certificate, virtual name servers, and personalized reverse DNS. The only "advantage" to having a dedicated IP address is being able to visit your web site by IP address, which isn't really necessary since most providers have a way to reach your site before your domain name propagates. A dedicated IP address is not faster than a shared IP address. A shared IP address will not cause a problem with using your own DNS. You can still access FTP and mail through a shared IP address. Frankly, if you don't know why you need a dedicated IP address, then you probably don't need one.

You should've made a quick search on the forums, I remember that this questions was asked a while back.

APNIC has a halfway decent (painfully brief, but halfway decent) FAQ dealing with this issue. See it at:

http://www.apnic.net/info/faq/virtualwebfaq.html

I normally would agree with most of these posts but since the Sphera sites I am dealing with seem to be having problems with named based IP's I wonder if static IP's are the best route. But then again I might never know because I'm about to wash my hands of dealing with the Sphera set-up.

the major problem with shared IP is when another domain is hosted on the same IP (on the same server and sharing IP between you and 100 other sites) gets banned/blacklisted due to spamming/cloaking. I can't say for 100% but web search engines may ban/block the IP, thus resulting of dropping your site (and other sites if they are indexed as well) from search engine index/db.

does that mean that in future when web servers and web browsers support shared IP address for SSL... then anonymous FTP will also be able to be available on a shared IP?

would that mean that dedicated IPs would be pretty much only required for personal name servers in the future?

does that mean that in future when web servers and web browsers support shared IP address for SSL... then anonymous FTP will also be able to be available on a shared IP?

would that mean that dedicated IPs would be pretty much only required for personal name servers in the future?

I don't think it will be possible to have shared IPs for secure server (SSL) or real FTP servers (anonymous etc). For SSL, it's due how encryption/decryption works.

Ftp doesn't have headers like HTTP does - therefor, it's impossible unless people rewrite FTP protocol:)