Top reasons why webmasters use dedicated hosting is the dedicated IP address. When it comes to shared hosting, it’s always a controversial issue, as you don’t get a dedicated IP address. Using a dedicated IP is advantageous for several reasons, but first, let us understand dedicated IP.
What is a dedicated IP ?
To understand dedicated IP, we need to truly understand how dedicated IP works. Similar to zip code or postal codes, IP address directs internet traffic to a certain place. While shared hosting is similar to an apartment – where one address (IP) has several houses and families hosted (websites). A dedicated IP resembles your own house – one address that points to your particular home (website). In a shared host, the host has certain software installed that help processes the request to the correct website.
When do I use dedicated hosting ?
1. Your site traffic grows high and needs dedicated resources to maintain it’s performance.
2. You would need to implement SSL encryption to your website
3. You want to implement 3rd party scripts onto your server
4. You need to access your website with your IP address
Why might you need to use dedicated hosting ?
1. Site traffic goes high:
When many users are accessing your sites, more bandwidth is being used. In turn, the users tend to consume resources from the host. With shared hosting, as hundreds of websites are hosted on a single server, there is a high possibility for your website to go down. i.e, website downtime. When you use dedicated hosting, you have the entire resources of the server to yourself. This way, you would help the viewers of your website with less load time and faster access speed.
2. You want to use SSL encryption on your website:
Let us assume that you have a portal on your website, where people could buy your products. This is similar to a mini e-commerce platform. When your visitors want to buy the product with a credit card or internet banking, you have to assure them with safety with the SSL certificated or simply the use of https protocols. In order to use an SSL certificate, your server must have a unique IP. So, you have no other choice, other than adapting to a dedicated IP or use dedicated hosting.
3. Implement 3rd party scripts on your server:
In the case of shared hosting, there is a limitation that you can’t install your own scripts on their server. This is basically a precaution to ensure security. Sometimes, the script installed may be dangerous and can have the capacity to destroy information.
In the case of a dedicated host, your server is completely yours. That means the host doesn’t care about the scripts you install. When you install a bad script, and since only your website is hosted there, only your website gets affected. You have higher control onto your server with shared hosting. Security is always important for your business, especially network security. Visit Fortinet for more information on business network and application security.
4. You want to stay independent of other’s mistake:
When you use shared hosting, you are under a risk of surrounded by several other spam sites. When spam sites are blocked with the IP address, your sites also gets blocked indirectly. You haven’t committed a crime here, yet you get punished. That’s simply shared hosting. This case doesn’t occur in dedicated hosting and hence is reliable.
5. Dedicated IP helps your SEO indirectly:
Everyone wants to be found on the first page of google SERP. Some follow SEO strategy and are quite successful. Google recently published that the page loading speed factor would affect the page rank of the website. Well, in this case, when you use shared hosting, you tend to be a little slower in accessing speed. As mentioned about the page loading speed, under high traffic, you might have to update to a dedicated host, else lose your page rank.
Well, Though google never mentioned directly about the use of a dedicated host, it more or less explains that you must use a dedicated host to rank higher.
Therefore, a dedicated IP can be one thing that you can write down to your to-do list of SEO strategy.
Should you bother with a dedicated IP ?
Well, the use of dedicated IP is beneficial, but you can still do great things without it. Once you realize a higher website downtime with your shared host, a higher traffic rate to your website, necessity for an SSL certificate – you might think about shifting to a dedicated host. A dedicated host is awesome but is priced way higher than shared hosting. So, it’s completely your decision to choose where you want to host your website. Use dedicated hosting or used a shared one. Some popular dedicated host include Hostinger, Godaddy, Bluehost, Hostagator, etc..