Benefits of a dedicated IP address?

[barney2229]

Hey, I am currently on a host with a shared IP address.

I was thinking of swapping to a dedicated IP address but have been wondering the if it has any benefits?

Anyone have any advice on this?

Thank you

[ee_joseph]

1- You can access the website & ftp using the ip address. SSH also if you have access to it.

2- SSL needs a dedicated IP

3- You need Dedicated IP for any private service in general, such as I have mentioned SSL and private server name.

In most cases you don't really need one :smile:.

[Sefket]

2- SSL needs a dedicated IP

3- You need Dedicated IP for any private service in general, such as I have mentioned SSL and private server name.

In most cases you don't really need one :smile:.

To add onto that, you have more of a chance of your website staying online if a server gets attacked (That's if you're on an Shared Server).

And you can access the website using FTP using the Shared IP to, don't know what you're talking about ee_joseph.

[Martin A.]

To add onto that, you have more of a chance of your website staying online if a server gets attacked (That's if you're on an Shared Server).

The attack would still be against the very same server. The same hardware/software would get cooked if the attack came trough a shared or private IP.

But I'm no server tech.

[ee_joseph]

To add onto that, you have more of a chance of your website staying online if a server gets attacked (That's if you're on an Shared Server).

And you can access the website using FTP using the Shared IP to, don't know what you're talking about ee_joseph.

I did come across a case that made my statement the way it is.

[Analogged]

If the server was under attack and the provider was to null route the IP once the null was in effect your site would still operate as long as the Nulled IP was not the main server address but i would hope that the host wouldn't use any of the DNS or Main IP's also for the shared hosting accounts. Though in saying that this would only be the case if the null did stop the attack and the attacker didn't just switch to another one of the server's IPs. During this hypothetical attack your site would still experiance issues, just after the attack if over / blocked and if the null if still in place your site wouldn't be effected or be forced to wait till the IP was enabled again.

Aside from what was already mentioned above some services and addons will require you to have a dedicated IP. You will also be able to load up your site using only the IP address as the URL, you can kinda do this with a shared ip but you would also need the account name on the server but if your using IPB it won't matter as your forum will only work with the domain you enter in the global config files.

[barney2229]

Thank you for your replies, it just so happens that I changed host and now have a dedicated IP address included in the package.

The information given was very informative anyhow so thank you :D

[Nevo]

Okay....


So according to ARIN and the rules... In order to get a Dedicated IP Address and apply it for a website... you must get an SSL and prove of purchase of said SSL Certificate. There are also other alternative methods to getting justification for a Dedi IP like a Virtual Private Server but that doesn't really work for you unless you actually have a Dedicated Server like myself.

Now.....

As far as the IP giving you extra perks and bonuses... For starters, what the guys up top are talking about in terms of attacks is this... When someone is attacking your server or website, they are targeting a specific IP. So, when the attacks are coming in... If you have one IP per website.. you can clearly see who it is thats being attacked. This is extremely comfortable (especially as a Server Admin). Other purposes are for Search Engine Optimization... See when people do a whois search on your website, they find out the domain registration, where the host is located, and what IP its using. If multiple websites are using the same IP, that information is available online and anyone can access it and see how many other websites currently are being hosted in the same server using that IP. Furthermore, if a website hosted on that IP started to break the rules, say have pornographic content and advertise as if it didn't... use dangerous black hat seo advertising methods, or spam using the email... It would all come back to the IP and all the websites hosted using that IP would suffer the same wraith. As an example to that... I had a client that ended up abusing the mail on his cPanel account and that IP ended up getting reported via CBL and blocked.... which resulted in all the websites hosted under that IP to no longer be able to successfully send mail without it going directly to Spam... and this was pretty much with every provider you can think of..

There are also perks that are mentioned above but the point is... If you feel like you want to get an IP and your host is giving you one.. With or without an SSL... Go for it. The rules will always be around but its those who enforce them that count and I'll tell you this much... noone is going to bother you about your IP if you don't have SSL and are using it. People have better things to do like go after the domain monopoly. ;)

One more comfortable thing thats also mentioned above is that if your Domain for whatever reason expires or someone takes it away from you... You can always change your paths and config to work with your Dedicated IP and have your website still online, fully kicking which is very nice for those of you who've experienced domain loss at a point in time in your web lifetime.

[Analogged]

ARIN justification is mostly an excuse web hosts use when they don't want to give you IPs. If you really dig down into the ARIN documentation, the IPs literally just have to be "in use", there is no specific list of things that are / are not valid justification.

As for accessing your website through a browser with or without a dedicated IP can still be done. If you have a dedicated IP you will be able to just place the IP in the URL bar and have it work but even if you have a shared IP you should still be able to do this using the "SharedIP/~accountname" depending on the setup of the hosting envirnment. Example, if you have your website hosted under an account on your server named "forums" using the shared IP "1.1.1.1" you should be able to load up your website by loading up the following URL 1.1.1.1/~forums opposed to if 1.1.1.1 was a dedicated IP you could just put the IP and leave out the account name.

[Nevo]

ARIN justification is mostly an excuse web hosts use when they don't want to give you IPs. If you really dig down into the ARIN documentation, the IPs literally just have to be "in use", there is no specific list of things that are / are not valid justification.

As for accessing your website through a browser with or without a dedicated IP can still be done. If you have a dedicated IP you will be able to just place the IP in the URL bar and have it work but even if you have a shared IP you should still be able to do this using the "SharedIP/~accountname" depending on the setup of the hosting envirnment. Example, if you have your website hosted under an account on your server named "forums" using the shared IP "1.1.1.1" you should be able to load up your website by loading up the following URL 1.1.1.1/~forums opposed to if 1.1.1.1 was a dedicated IP you could just put the IP and leave out the account name.

Yes, this is now a common issue with IPv4 since they are all almost assigned. Any IP your host gives you will be a dedicated... the only real difference is if you want to have the extra protection and privacy of being the only one responsible for that specific IP and therefore being able to assure that everything is running smoothly... When you use the Shared Dedicated IP... Even from a professional hosting company... it's being shared with sites you know nothing about and could ruin your seo or email... and you could always pay for services that tell you whos hosted on that IP... but the fact in the matter is, do you really want to be spending more time and funding towards your website or just make things easier and go with a unique dedicated IP used for your websites only.

[Christian M.]

The attack would still be against the very same server. The same hardware/software would get cooked if the attack came trough a shared or private IP.

But I'm no server tech.

Well your site would be attacked specifically. If other sites use the same IP they would experience some slowness in their sites in the process, not all of them but some, most if the attacks would be mitigated and not reach all of the customers using the same IP. Which is why the hoster would either say get out or find a way to stop the attack.

This has happened to me a lot sadly, don't know why people do it, i just think that they have no lives when they do it

[Lindy]

ARIN justification is mostly an excuse web hosts use when they don't want to give you IPs. If you really dig down into the ARIN documentation, the IPs literally just have to be "in use", there is no specific list of things that are / are not valid justification.

As for accessing your website through a browser with or without a dedicated IP can still be done. If you have a dedicated IP you will be able to just place the IP in the URL bar and have it work but even if you have a shared IP you should still be able to do this using the "SharedIP/~accountname" depending on the setup of the hosting envirnment. Example, if you have your website hosted under an account on your server named "forums" using the shared IP "1.1.1.1" you should be able to load up your website by loading up the following URL 1.1.1.1/~forums opposed to if 1.1.1.1 was a dedicated IP you could just put the IP and leave out the account name.

There is quite a lot wrong with this.

First, ARIN requires actual documentation of what and how they're used for. SSL, DNS, etc. The "in-use" is in reference to utilizing a percentage of your current allocation before you are able to request additional address space.

It's important to be responsible netizens. We are essentially out of ipv4 address space because huge corporations like IBM were originally allocated A blocks. Every device imaginable now gets an IP address and for blatant abuse of address space by hosts and their end-users.

If you don't need a static IP (short of SSL, there's few legitimate purposes) - please don't use one.

In regards to sharedip/~username -- most hosts disable mod_userdir now for security purposes.

[Jesse M.]

Having a dedicated IP address could also help in SEO.

[Wootable]

@Jesse Not according to Matt Cutts. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/myth-busting-virtual-hosts-vs-dedicated-ip-addresses/

[Grumpy]

Dedicated IP does NOT help with SEO.

1. Google says it doesn't (see matt cutt's link above. He is head of webspam @ google)

2. Statistical evidence says it doesn't. Or at least so minuscule it can't be measured. (Though can't find link, was reported by a large seo company from their huge number of sites)

3. There is ZERO evidence to support the idea that dedi ip helps SEO. Just imaginations.

4. If you think big search engines are so stupid that they don't even realize there's such a thing as shared hosting... >.>

The myth likely comes from blackhat seo tactics. Thousands of sites linking to each other from a single IP. That's an easy red flag for the search engine.

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If your shared IP is on spam block list (mail sending should not be confused with seo), tell your host to fix it. Or move to another host because you are at a crappy crappy host.

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@RE: What Lindy said about /8 ips being assigned to IBM.

That's true, they were assigned /8 along with a whole bunch of others. But it's not entirely accurate to imply that IBM likes to hog all their IP space, leaving them to rot and making it impossible to be used by anyone else. There are many re-sales of IP by large block holders.

[Mat Barrie]

Lindy, on 06 Jan 2013 - 05:33, said:

There is quite a lot wrong with this.

First, ARIN requires actual documentation of what and how they're used for. SSL, DNS, etc. The "in-use" is in reference to utilizing a percentage of your current allocation before you are able to request additional address space.

It's important to be responsible netizens. We are essentially out of ipv4 address space because huge corporations like IBM were originally allocated A blocks. Every device imaginable now gets an IP address and for blatant abuse of address space by hosts and their end-users.

If you don't need a static IP (short of SSL, there's few legitimate purposes) - please don't use one.

In regards to sharedip/~username -- most hosts disable mod_userdir now for security purposes.

To add to that, once we get rid of Windows XP, even SSL won't be a legitimate use anymore thanks to SNI (Server Name Indication) which is supported by every operating system, but Microsoft refuses to port it to XP.

While the statement about ARIN/APNIC/LACNIC/RIPE wanting to know what you're using IP addresses for, as mentioned earlier none of them actually clarify what they define as a legitimate usage - that's up to the provider from whom you're acquiring your IP addresses. Usually, though, your provider will be quite strict as they cannot get more addresses even if they want to (from RIPE or ARIN. APNIC and LACNIC still have some space left but they're assigning pretty small blocks at this point).

[Grumpy]

To add to that, once we get rid of Windows XP, even SSL won't be a legitimate use anymore thanks to SNI (Server Name Indication) which is supported by every operating system, but Microsoft refuses to port it to XP.

While the statement about ARIN/APNIC/LACNIC/RIPE wanting to know what you're using IP addresses for, as mentioned earlier none of them actually clarify what they define as a legitimate usage - that's up to the provider from whom you're acquiring your IP addresses. Usually, though, your provider will be quite strict as they cannot get more addresses even if they want to (from RIPE or ARIN. APNIC and LACNIC still have some space left but they're assigning pretty small blocks at this point).

SNI also requires the client browser to support it. So, I doubt such route would become the "norm" anytime soon.