Should Your Law Firm Website Use A Shared Or Dedicated IP Address To Resolve Search Engine Rankings Concerns?
Many lawyers want high search engine rankings in order to receive cases for their law firms and are, understandably, concerned about whether to use a shared or dedicated IP address for their website hosting. Most hosting businesses offer a shared IP address, also known as a domain name address, with their hosting accounts, with the option of purchasing a dedicated IP address for an extra fee. To see an example of an IP address, type 209.59.6.40 into your Internet browser’s address bar and press enter. This is the IP address for Consultwebs.com and that is why the Consultwebs website opens when you input this IP address.In this article, we will answer the following questions: What is the difference between a shared and a dedicated IP address, should you be concerned if you use a shared IP address and does it affect your rankings? Since law firms do not typically use, e.g., shopping carts, we will not address SSL certificates. If your law firm accepts online credit cards and other secure transactions, you will typically need a dedicated IP address.
What is the difference between a shared and a dedicated IP address?
If your website is hosted on a shared IP address, hundreds or thousands of websites can be using the same IP address as your website. If your website is hosted on a dedicated IP address, your website is the only site that uses that particular IP address. A dedicated IP address typically costs an average of $1-5 dollars per month more than a shared address.
Should I be concerned about my website using shared IP address?
Yes and no. The IP address you are sharing with other websites could get flagged for adult or spam content or suffer other penalties that extend to the IP address. It’s always a good idea to perform a reverse IP lookup on the IP address you are given, to see what other websites are shared within your IP address and IP range.
Even if you have a dedicated IP address, you could still be flagged if an IP within your IP range is flagged. Therefore a reverse IP lookup is a still a good idea if you are hosting your site on a dedicated IP address. You can run a reverse IP lookup with a tool such as http://www.reverseipcheck.com/.
Can it affect my ranking? Will my website rank higher if I use a dedicated IP address?
Google Director of Technology Craig Silverstein said in a Slashdot interview: “Actually, Google handles virtually hosted domains and their links just the same as domains on dedicated IP addresses. If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you’ll never see a difference between the two cases. We do see a small percentage of ISPs every month that misconfigure their virtual hosting, which might account for this persistent misperception – thank you for giving me the chance to dispel a myth!”
Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team also said: “Links to virtually hosted domains are treated the same as links to domains on dedicated IP addresses.”
In summary, for both questions – “Can a shared IP address affect my rankings?” and “Can my website rank higher if I use a dedicated IP address?” – the answer is, “No.”
However, it is still a good practice to use a dedicated IP address to prevent you from being blacklisted in the search engines in the event that a shady website uses your shared address.
If you would like additional information on law web hosting, please feel free to contact us at marketing@consultwebs.com or call us at 800-872-6590.
