Dedicated IP Address vs Shared IP Address: Pros And Cons

What is an IP address?

Before directly hopping on Dedicated IP, the first thing you need to know is about the IP address. The term IP in “IP address” stands for Internet Protocol and Protocol means “Set of rules”. which is exactly a digital address consisting of long strings of numbers and assigned to every domain that follows a set of rules or guidelines for connecting on the Internet.

The IP addresses help to differentiate locations of billions of digital devices that are connected to the internet from one another.

Let me better explain to you how it works? First of all, when you type any domain name on your web browser and hit enter, Your ISP will start a DNS query to request the nameservers associated with that domain. All these processes will do behind the server that lets you access the domain name.

At present there are mainly two types of IP addresses are used and they are IPv4 and IPv6.

1. IPV4 : An IP address with 32 bit number ( e.g- 234.324.440.001)
2. IPV6: A new IP address with 128 bit number (e.g- 4ggr:1924:5656:8:500:t4tt:tc54:99vt)

We won’t go much into deeper these two types of IP addresses, but one thing worth mentioning is that the internet has been so expanded, that it can even be running out of IP addresses.

This is the main reason, why IPv6 has been introduced in 1998 and can provide up to 340 trillion trillion trillion IP addresses. Which is a humongous number that can be able to meet the growing need for IP addresses for IoT devices in coming years.

Now moving forward to understand Dedicated IP addresses.

What is a Dedicated IP address?

From the name itself, it is clear that Dedicated IP addresses are those digital addresses that you have been assigned and have not been shared or used by any other domains. IT is a unique address on the web. You can easily get one from your WordPress Hosting service provider by paying a small amount.

It is quite different from Shared IP addresses where your domain is being mapped to an address that is shared by multiple other domains. This shared IP address is quite popular among beginners and even the majority of the WordPress hosting providers are offering it in their plans.

It is because dedicated IPs are quite expensive as compared to the shared IP addresses and many websites do not require a dedicated IP address at the very beginning, Once they get started getting good traffic, then it will be profitable to move to the dedicated one. However, we will get into more details in the coming sections.

All of our WordPress hosting plans here at WPOven with dedicated IP addresses. You can find your server address after creating a Server with WPOven, you can see all its details on the ‘Manage’ page under the ‘Server’ tab. The number in front of the Host IP string in the table is your IP address.

Pros and Cons of Dedicated IP address

To better understand how Dedicated IP can be a better or Worst option over other popular IP e.g shared IP, let us compare between Dedicated IP and Shared IP on various parameters.

Difference Between Dedicated IP and Shared IP

From the name itself, it can be easier for you to understand how dedicated IP is different from shared IP. A shared IP address is just like any other digital address which is accessed by more than one website but has a single web server. And the webserver has to withstand all the load and do extra tasks for multiple websites associated with it.

Whereas, in the case of a dedicated IP address, a single website has its address and can easily access the web using either an IP address or the domain name.

Comparing Dedicated IP vs Shared IP on Network and Website Speed

I know, at this moment you must be confused about which would be better to pick from two available choices dedicated IP or Shared IP for your WordPress website. Well, when you search your query on the internet, you will come across a variety of posts arguing especially for the following two main reasons.

1. Dedicated IPs let you access the website directly through their respective IP addresses where the domain name is directly mapped to that particual IP only.
2. Through dedicated IP, it will be easier for you to get access to your webserver using FTP clients.

But the truth is, neither of the above reasons turned out to be valid or strong advantages for using a dedicated IP. It is because a majority of the users do not like to access websites through their IP addresses directly and for the second reason, there is no need to access your web server using FTP clients, there are multiple easier and quick approaches that are also available.

One thing, you must know is that shared IP is different from Shared Hosting. So, while using a shared IP, it doesn’t mean that it provides slower site performance and your website performance will not be affected by using a shared IP address.

Dedicated IP on SSL certificate and Security

Earlier, you need to have a dedicated IP address to obtain an SSL certificate. But things have been changed now, and new technology has been introduced named SNI or Server Name Identification. With the help of this new technology, it has become possible to get an SSL certificate without having a dedicated IP address.

Now the SSL certificate will match with the server names rather than the IP address. However, you can still get an SSL certificate with a dedicated IP address but it is not mandatory now. But it can be changed depending upon one web hosting service provider to another. Some of them may make it essential requirements to have a dedicated IP for an SSL certificate and some not.

SSL certificates are one of the most essential requirements for any WordPress site especially if you are running an e-commerce website or any other website that requires users’ sensitive data. Even, when we talk about SEO point of view, SSL-certified websites will have a higher chance of higher ranks on SERPs rather than the website that doesn’t have.

In addition to that, it helps to increase the credibility of a website by not displaying a “site is not secure” message on the webpage which can create a sense that the site is not trustworthy.

Dedicated IP on Email marketing

When you are required to send emails in bulk or do email marketing, it is usually recommended to have a dedicated IP address. But it can be only beneficial if the sending volume of emails must be more than a hundred thousand emails per year.
In addition to it, we do not recommend you to opt for a dedicated IP from your web hosting service provider and start sending low-volume emails, it can potentially harm you. It is because If you will have a dedicated IP for sending promotional or sales emails it can affect your IP reputation as well, which is very important especially when you talk about ISP(Internet Service Provider) and delivery rates.

If you are not good at email marketing, the ISP will consider it as spam and can blacklist your IP address. And also affect your Delivery rate and your ability to reach messages to the customer’s inbox will be affected. This is the main reason, why you would require to build a good reputation about your IP address and try to make it into a whitelist of ISPs.

So, here come the third-party email service providers come to the rescue, and provide you an alternate path to send emails in bulk without worrying about your website IP reputation. But when you use dedicated IP provided from your web hosting provider, it will typically work like shared hosting. you will be bound to the configuration that your hosting provider has already configured for sending emails. And if something went wrong, such as if any other client is practicing bad email marketing, then there are high chances that the IP address will get banned or blacklisted.

And you will be hopelessly waiting for the issue to be resolved. Which can ultimately delay your whole email marketing process and poor delivery rates.

So, it is highly recommended that you must opt for third parties who can provide you with email marketing solutions. Even there are many third-party email marketing platforms available such as Sendinblue and Mailchimp who provide free services up to 10k emails per month and their premium plans are even available at cheaper rates. For more details about these third-party email marketing platforms, you can read our detailed article on Free SMTP servers for sending emails.

These third-party email marketing SAAS platforms provide you with a whole infrastructure that you will require for email services with the latest industry standards. They have dedicated team members who work 24×7 to provide a smooth experience to their customers without any glitch and ensure the IPs won’t get backlisted.

However, these third-party email marketing platforms also provide you a dedicated IP address for sending emails, but you need to pay extra for that and if you are not sending emails in bulk or huge volume, this can also affect you badly. A few poor email marketing can hurt your IP reputation as well.

Whereas, in Shared IPs, you do not need to build a reputation because the IP addresses were already warned up and ready to send high volume emails. The shared IPs are delicately monitored 24×7 by the team members who monitor and ensure the emails just reach their destiny.

Dedicated IP and its affect on SEO

Now, it is time to know how Dedicated IPs can affect your SEO. Although, it has not been written or provided by Google about IPs and their effect on SEO. It can only be observed by extensive research and years of experience that we are going to share with you.
Since there are no perfect rules or guidelines has been mentioned by Google regarding SEO, but it has provided some webmaster guidelines in which there is nothing mentioned about dedicated IP addresses.

To your surprise, even Google itself uses shared IP addresses to host their multiple domains. Another important thing you need to know is that even a dedicated IP will not be likely help you out even you use Top-notch WordPress hosting or do extensive SEO.

It is because, if you use a low-quality web host, it will not provide you a better spam filter and will continue running compromised/hacked websites on their platform.

Similarly, when talking about email credibility and its reputation, IP can also get banned or blacklisted by ISPs. But it is not that big deal for now, because Google has become very smart and knows better that a website can be on shared web hosting in which users have no control over their shared IPs.

In addition to it, Google also understands a website can also be subjected to get negative SEO attacks by spam and malware attacks and also knows better that users are now using shared IPs.

Can changing IPs will affect your SEO?

The most sought question regarding SEO in terms of IP is, does it affect your rankings when you change your IP address?

Well, when you either change your web hosting service provider or add a security service, Google will consider it as a new IP address joined with your domain. But, when we talk about our experience of migrating hundreds of websites, it is not the main thing you should concern about.

It is because Google treats links that are connected with virtually hosted domains the same as the links associated with domains on dedicated IPs. In addition to it, even all the websites which are on the same IP address are a common thing nowadays.

Even top-notch companies change their IP addresses continuously, if it does affect their SEO, they would not have done it.

Is it possible to migrate a Dedicated IP?

Now the other most common question arises in the majority of the people if they can migrate a dedicated IP? Well in short the answer is No. It is because it is not possible to have two different web hosting services for a single domain name. And when you migrate your domain name or website from one web hosting server to another, the IP address changes.

So if you have a dedicated IP address, you won’t be able to migrate to another web-hosting provider, or else you will require to have a new IP address instead. However, things might be a little different for shared hosting with dedicated IP, which is still a bad option. Which we will cover in upcoming posts.

Dedicated IP: Is it pricey?

Now the last and most important thing to consider is Dedicated IP pricing. Well, the whole plans and pricing of dedicated as well as shared IPs can vary from one web hosting provider to another and for how long you are going to enjoy this service.

Generally, dedicated IPs come with expensive plans as compared to shared IPs and on average it can cost you around $4 to $100 per month. This pricing solely depends on the plan, features, services, and addons you opt with.

Another thing you must keep in mind is that buying a dedicated IP as an additional feature with shared hosting would be not the same as buying a dedicated web hosting service.

Similarly, you can buy a shared IP plan on dedicated hosting. At WPOven, in our all plans, we offer only a dedicated Virtual Private Server with dedicated IPs by default. For more queries related to add-ons, features, and other benefits you can visit our WPOVen plans and Features page or contact our team directly.

You cannot simply make a conclusion on which will be better between a Dedicated IP or shared, by simply comparing their prices. There are a lot of other parameters you need to follow such as what are the addons you will get, the reputation of Web hosting services, and for what time duration.

Summary

There has been a lot of misconceptions and poor information about dedicated IPs has been circulating the internet for quite a long time. But after reading this post, I hope it will help you to build a strong and basic concept about dedicated IP and rule out all the vague information.

Let us summarize in brief:

1. The network and website speed does have an advantage for using dedicated IPs however, it doesn’t mean that shared IPs slow the website.
2. Shared Hosting and Shared ID are two different things, and you must not get confused between the two.
3. There is no effect on website Security whether you use a dedicated IP or shared one. A new technology named SNI has been introduced and hosts now let you upload your own SSL certifiates.
4. Dedicated IP has an advantage to send bulk emails and build your own reputation, But we highly do not recommend you to use dedicated IPs for email marketing rather use third party email marketing platforms.
5. You do not need to worry about SEO unless you are using a Reputated Web hosting services.
6. It is not possible to migrate your Dedicated IP between two web hosts but you can change your IP address and it will not affect your website in any case.
7. The Price of Dedicated IPs will vary from one web host to another depending upon the plan, features, addons and for how long service you need.

If you like to add more points or we missed mentioning some more worthy points, please do let us know in the comment section below, we love to hear from you guys!

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