Dedicated IP
Dedicated IP is a feature offered by hosting providers for an additional fee, and determines the way an <IP address> is assigned to your site.
In shared hosting packages, a large group of websites is assigned the same <IP address>. The hosting provider's server can determine which of these sites you're trying to reach according to the domain name you type, but if you type the actual IP address, you'll get a generic kind of page that belongs to the hosting provider himself.
With dedicated IP, your site gets a unique IP address that never changes and is not shared with any other sites.
Benefits of a dedicated IP
Some spam-control or similar programs flag sites according to IP. That means that your site address or your account email addresses might be blocked or blacklisted through no fault of yours, without your knowledge, simply because another user with the same IP address was spamming or running Internet scams.
It is argued that having a dedicated IP also improves your search engine ranking, though to what degree cannot be determined, and probably varies from search engine to search engine.
Who needs dedicated IP?
Shared IP is the standard of most hosting packages, which means most sites have a shared IP and are doing fine with it. On the other hand, you will probably need a dedicated IP if:
- You want to offer <Anonymous FTP> services. Many hosting providers will enabled this feature only if you obtain a dedicated IP. Others will not vouch for its performance unless you have a dedicated IP.
- You want to apply your own <SSL> certificate to your site. You'll need an SSL certificate for secured transactions on your site, like collecting credit card information, or even for sensitive user information.
Some providers offer a shared SSL, for which you will not need a dedicated IP. If your provider doesn't offer one, or if you want to use your own SSL certificate anyway, you will have to purchase a dedicated IP hosting plan.