Shared web hosting services rarely include or offer dedicated IP addresses, as the costs of bestowing such luxury on thousands of shared hosting customers would be through the roof. For clarification, most shared accounts feature a shared IP address. This means your website must share an IP address with hundreds and perhaps even thousands of other websites. Despite common belief, however, this will not hurt your website’s pagerank.
Dedicated IP Myths
Many people mistakenly believe that not having a dedicated IP address will hurt their business website’s pagerank and cost them in lost profits. This is a false assumption. According to the Google Director of Technology, Craig Silverstein, Google treats sites with shared IP addresses the same as sites with unique, dedicated addresses. This means you do not necessarily have to sign up for a dedicated address for your site to perform well on the Internet, though it would be better if you did.
Why Dedicated Addresses Are Still Important
The company you keep tells a lot about you. Likewise, the websites that share your IP address reflect on your own site. If your peers are engaging in illegal activities or using Black Hat SEO techniques, for instance, and the Google search engine catches them, your site will also suffer. Basically, all the websites situated at that particular IP address will suffer a severe drop in web traffic, even if they themselves were not doing anything illegal or improper.
Host Gator Shared Dedicated IP
A dedicated IP address is only available by default for the Business shared web hosting plan, which runs for $10.36 per month. You may also obtain it for the Baby plan, which costs only $6.39 per month, but you must provide reasonable justification, i.e. you need it for an SSL certificate. Unfortunately, Host Gator’s cheapest plan, the Hatchling, is not eligible at all for a dedicated address. Keep in mind also that obtaining a dedicated IP for either the Business or Baby plan requires paying an additional $2.00 per month.
Host Gator Dedicated/VPS Plans
Your last option is to just sign up for a dedicated or VPS hosting plan, as they both come with a minimum of 1 dedicated IP address. The only drawback to this option, however, is the price, which ranges from $40.00 up to $300.00 per month. Mind you, both plans would save you the hassle of having to worry about poor traffic results or misbehaving Web neighbors.
