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Why get a dedicated IP address?

Before the days of SNI (Server Name Indicator), you had to have your own dedicated IP address when installing an SSL certificate as a shared hosting customer. This was so the server would be able to delegate your certificate to your website only, and not get lost among the other customers sharing the same server and IP address as you. This is no longer a requirement under modern hosting technology, so there are very few reasons why you may want or need a dedicated IP address on your web hosting service. Some of those reasons may include:
  • Third-party applications may require you to use one.
  • Your organisation may have a policy requiring one.

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Why do I need to provide a reason to get a dedicated IP Address?

There are currently a limited number of IPv4 addresses available at this time. The IPv4 addressing system was created in the 1980s, and at the time they thought that having a limit of 4.3 billion IP Addresses was more than enough to deal with the future growth of the internet. From then on, the internet exploded with growth, which has caused IPv4 addresses to become more and more scarce until they eventually ran out. For this reason, VentraIP has a limited number of IPv4 addresses assigned to it, which means we have rules in place to ensure that people are only getting a dedicated IP Address if they really need it.

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How to request a dedicated IP

VentraIP still offers dedicated IP addresses as an add-on to hosting products even though they are no longer required for SSL installation. This comes at an additional cost of $99.95/month on top of your regular hosting fees. To request your own IP address, reach out to our Accounts and Billing team via an eTicket.

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Common Misconceptions

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I need a Dedicated IP address so that visitors using older browsers can view my website.

This is only the case for older web browsers (Internet Explorer 6-8) on outdated operating systems (Windows XP) because they don’t support a feature called SNI (Server Name Indication). SNI solved the problem by allowing SSL Certificates to operate on a shared IP Address, meaning that dedicated IP Addresses are no longer required.

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I need a dedicated IP address to help improve my SEO ranking

This one was debunked a long time ago by Google’s Director of Technology. Even today, in Google’s webmaster guidelines, there is no mention of anything to suggest that having a Dedicated IP will in any way improve your SEO ranking.

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I need a dedicated IP address so that other users on the server do not affect my email delivery.

All of our shared email hosting servers route mail through a Spam Experts Outbound Spam Filter. This means that even with a Dedicated IP address, the IP address that is sending the email is the address of our Spam Filter (we cannot change this on a per-user level). The spam filter is there for the very purpose of ensuring the IP reputation stays positive, and email deliverability is always at its best.
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