Dedicated IP vs Shared IP Address

What is IP Address?

The meaning has been expressed in the name itself – ‘address’. As each of the houses has their own mailing address; website and domain name has their own address (numeric form) in the internet. The IP Address is a unique way to find your site in the World Wide Web. It is poised of four numbers whose digits are 0–255 separated by periods (-) or dots (.) for an example 123.456.7.890. There are several IP addresses as static, fixed or dedicated and shared.

Who need a Dedicated IP and Shared IP?

Dedicated IP

Is a sole address which is only belongs to your website and domain name. You can access your website by typing http://yourdomainname.com/ or http:// 123.456.7.890/ in the browser. Dedicated IP is mostly used by a user who wants to own the Private Secure Sockets Layers Certificate (SSL). If you are running a business based on website which may includes merchant accounts, accept credit cards and payments or you need to transfer some important quotations and files; you may need the Dedicated IP. Besides that, large or busy sites as cooperates sites couldn’t use a Shared IP because they can be snowed under a sudden high traffic loads. So those sites can choose the dedicated server hosting with a Dedicated IP. Nevertheless, it cost more than a Shared IP but yet it has more control on the server.

Shared IP

Shared IP is shared by two or more websites and domains. Most small or medium sites as blogs, forums will use the Shared IP. Before the Shared IP address was created every domain was coupled up with an IP address. But because of the rapid growth of websites+domains and finite number of available IP addresses, Shared IP system was introduced. The system didn’t disappoint anyone as servers are able to match the domain name even there are numbers of users in the servers.  Those who are not affordable for a SSL Certificate to encrypt your online transactions not to be worry because you can use other alternative for a payment service as PayPal. For the question; Is Shared IP is slow to access compared to Dedicated IP and the answer would be definitely NOT. The speed of a website depends on the server speed and type of server where the site is hosted, not type of IP!

Dedicated IP address is requisite for the special access to your website like SSL Certificate. Evaluate your needs and if you have no unique requirements, Shared IP address will be fine for you.