Hi all,
I noticed that some hosts offer a dedicated IP address. Why would I want one? What is the difference between dedicated IP and non dedicated. I do not mean dedicated servers. I mean shared ( or virtual I guess) hosting.
Thanks

One reason would be if you wanted an SSL certificate on your own domain. You would need a dedicated IP address for that.

People will give all sorts of other arguments why you should have an IP address, but these days, there's really no need and with the ever decreasing IP addresses available in v4 it's always responsible hosting to only use dedicated IP addresses if you actually need to.

Spam also. If someone on your IP gets poped for spamming your Ip is blocked from sending mail to certain servers.

Good point, I'd forgotten that one. Though more and more the RBL's simply block the whole IP block now to get the providers attention.

You can also get black listed from search engines if another website that shares the same IP as you uses the site to post improper content. i.e. hate sites, child porn, etc.

I would always recommend a dedicated IP if you want to rank highly in search engines.

A dedicated IP is a marginal isurance that your host cant host too many sites on his server! assuming ofcourse that he is giving a dedicated IP to all his clients.

I hear that search engines are aware of shared IP hosting now so will ban by domain name, not IP address.

And yes, RBL's tend to go after the whole block.

So really the only *need* for a dedicated IP is SSL, which most (if not all) webhosts will have a stash set aside for just that purpose.

Greg Moore