Dedicated IP

Is a dedicated IP address really in­dis­pens­able for best-possible website hosting? And are dedicated IPs really the ultimate when it comes to the reliable sending of emails? When searching for the answers online, it becomes clear that opinions on the matter diverge heavily.

In the following, we’ll explain what a dedicated IP address is and how it differs from its shared coun­ter­part. Sub­sequently, we’ll explore whether a dedicated IP is in­dis­pens­able for modern Internet working, as is often claimed.

Before we take a look at the dif­fer­ences between dedicated and shared addresses, we should clarify what an IP address is. An IP address is a uniquely iden­ti­fi­able device address in a computer network. IP stands for Internet Protocol, which has been used for decades to address and fragment data packages in digital networks and provides the basis for the Internet.

A typical IP address looks like the following (protocol versions 4 and 6 are currently in use):

IPv4: 192.168.178.31

IPv6: 0000:0000:0000:0000:0000:ffff:c0a8:b21f

IP addresses are usually connected to a specific devices which then connect to a network. All services and ap­plic­a­tions running on the device can be operated via the same address. This is important for hosting service providers (spe­cific­ally web­serv­ers/web spaces), news­let­ter providers for email marketing, etc. They can assign a unique address to a single user; in other words, the service receives a dedicated IP address.

Even an IP address, which is assigned a unique device when dialling into a private network (LAN, WLAN) or a public network like the Internet, is generally a dedicated IP.

The features of a shared IP can be easily deduced from the previous explainer on dedicated IP addresses. The main re­quire­ment is the same: a device in a network has a unique address. If, for example, the same system hosts a service for multiple users, the address is referred to as a shared IP address. Using the example of web hosting, an address would be assigned to multiple domains not just a single one. News­let­ter sub­scrip­tion services or email more commonly use shared as opposed to dedicated IPs.

In­de­pend­ent of whether you’re using a general web hosting or a specific CMS hosting (e.g. WordPress), a news­let­ter marketing solution, a cloud storage, or another rentable web service, many times you’ll receive an add-on offer to improve the quality of these services via a dedicated IP address. But is a dedicated IP really still an im­prove­ment over shared ones nowadays? In the following, we discuss the typical arguments made for using a dedicated IP vs. a shared IP.

Security now takes a pressing role when it comes to modern web projects. En­cryp­tion of contents via a SSL cer­ti­fic­ate and its successor TLS has become a standard, ever since Google’s blogpost on “HTTPS as a ranking signal“ in 2014, which high­lighted that cer­ti­fic­a­tion had a positive effect on ranking.

In order to use the SSL/TLS cer­ti­fic­ate for your own website, a dedicated IP was required. With the release of the TLS extension SNI (Server Name In­dic­a­tion) websites of various domains can share a server on Port 443 dedicated to the SSL/TLS en­cryp­tion. Although the extension was defined in 2003, modern browsers only began to support it by 2015. A dedicated IP address may oc­ca­sion­ally still be a re­quire­ment for SSL/TLS due to the very slow im­ple­ment­a­tion process of SNI. In reality, a dedicated IP is not necessary to convert a website to HTTPS.

Hosting providers offer a wide range of products – a welcome cir­cum­stance, but one that can cause confusion. Hosting a project on a dedicated server, i.e. a specially assigned server, is seen as a par­tic­u­larly powerful option. Specific hardware resources are being assigned to a single customer in this case. Because a dedicated server is coupled to a dedicated IP, the dedicated IP address is equalled to a more powerful and guar­an­teed per­form­ance.

The per­form­ance of a website is not ne­ces­sar­ily worse just because it is hosted on a shared server. Nowadays, providers tend to share per­form­ance resources among all parties involved in an efficient and skilled manner to enable promised ca­pa­cit­ies anytime, despite the shared IP address.

There’s been much debate whether a dedicated IP has ad­vant­ages over a shared one when sending emails for years. If you regularly send multiple emails (for example, a news­let­ter or sales email), you may benefit from a dedicated mail server address. Ca­pa­cit­ies are always a given and the repu­ta­tion of the IP, which has an influence on the transfer speed, is up to you.

But the argument for optimal resource ca­pa­cit­ies is rarely con­sidered these days due to high per­form­ance pos­sib­il­it­ies of email servers these days. Unless you’re a power user with over 100,000 mails per year, sending emails via a shared IP is ab­so­lutely suf­fi­cient. In terms of repu­ta­tion, the following applies:

• If you regularly (daily) send multiple messages (5,000+) with a low spam rating (below 0.1%), a dedicated IP address has a positive effect.

If a criterium does not apply, a dedicated IP may quickly pose a dis­ad­vant­age compared to shared addresses in terms of repu­ta­tion. Factors such as regular sending of mails and a low spam rating are central to the repu­ta­tion score of the receiving servers.

SEO is the core essence for the success of a website. It’s little sur­pris­ing then that a com­par­is­on of shared and dedicated IP addresses is always con­sidered when it comes to the impact on search engine ranking. But the IP address and the derived server location have little influence on Google’s ranking.

In 2006, Google ad­min­is­trat­or Matt Cutts clarified in a blog post that it didn’t matter whether a domain was assigned to a unique IP or not. A shared IP merely carries the risk that the domain could be falsely black­lis­ted by a Google bot (due to the content of a neighbour domain). This is in­cred­ibly rare and can be quickly remedied.

From an SEO per­spect­ive, the type of IP address is not really relevant. For a positive po­s­i­tion­ing among search engine results, factors such as quality or unique­ness of contents, keywords, or per­form­ance and usability of the web project are more important.

For many years, there have been plenty of reasons to use a dedicated IP address. Security aspects and the use of SSL/TLS have been central aspects ad­voc­at­ing for the use of a dedicated IP. Because a secure transfer via HTTPS is now in­de­pend­ent of the type of IP address, the dedicated IP has lost its value. The ad­di­tion­al costs as­so­ci­ated with it are better spent elsewhere, such as on the op­tim­isa­tion of content and usability.

A dedicated IP address can be of advantage, for example, for sending large numbers of emails, where pro­fes­sion­al conduct is key to avoid a dedicated IP with a negative repu­ta­tion. But ir­re­spect­ive of a dedicated server solution, which pre­dic­ates the use of an ob­lig­at­ory dedicated IP address, there’s little reason not to use a shared IP or switch from a dedicated to a shared address.