WHAT IS AN IP ADDRESS?
An IP address or Internet Protocol Address is a set of 4 numbers assigned to each device on a computer network. In other words, it is just like the real address of your own house, the difference however is that the house here is your PC. When we apply this definition to the internet, the IP address can be considered a numerical representation of a website address. IP addresses are unique, but there are some cases where these IP addresses are shared among several users and respective websites.
How do IP addresses work? When you go online whether searching or wanting to send an email, you’re accessing a network that is connected to the internet itself or one that gives you access to the internet. Perhaps that’s connecting to whatever internet service provider (ISP) you have at home or using a company network in the office.
To do this successfully, your computer uses internet protocol, and your IP address is used as a virtual return address to establish a connection.
As of now, IP addresses have two types.
a. IPv4: 216.58.217.206
The IPv4 or Internet Protocol Version 4 is an older version of the newer IPv6, this version works on a 32bit number system. It is still in use and is holding up pretty well against the test of time. However, as the network increased, the need for a better protocol version was required and hence IPv6 was created.
b. IPv6: 0:0:0:0:0:ffff:d83a:d9ce
IPv6 was created in 1995, and deployed in the public domain in 2000. To manage the ever-growing number of users on an ever-growing network, the 32bit number system wasn’t enough. Hence a 128bit protocol version was created with the intention of managing the growing number of networks and users.
Why a Unique IP Address is Important?
Be it a business, a blogging website, or even an educational website concerned with providing useful material for college-going students, an independent IP address is extremely necessary as much important as a person’s unique identification card or number. If your web host offers a dedicated server, you will be able to have your own, unique IP address for your website. Let’s talk about the benefit of this:
- Having a unique IP address will increase the stability and reliability of your website. That means your website would be unaffected by the other websites that are on the same server. If a website on your server gets its IP address blocked or blacklisted, it would not affect your website since it’s not sharing the same IP address.
- Much secure. A unique IP address offers a layer of protection and greater security and reliability.
- No Punishment. Since the internet has quite darker corners as well it wouldn’t be a surprising fact to know another user using the same IP address as yours for some darker deeds. Such activities are instantly monitored and tracked which can ultimately lead to their termination. You will be punished too if you are sharing the same IP Address.
- No Risk of Plagiarism. Having a unique IP address saves you from plagiarism because you will not be sharing with others. Of course, you don’t want the risk of your ideas being stolen by others! This can lead to a downfall and you do not want that.
As the technology is adapting faster than the human gene itself, one can only imagine the advent of newer avenues of an ever-growing network, and to manage these networks to every last user we all need IP addresses. We learned that having just an IP address is not enough, but a unique IP address will do the magic.
Importance of IP addresses
Whenever a casual PC user comes across the vast world of the internet, he/she often hears a set of specific terms such as “servers, IP addresses, proxy servers, VPNs” etc. But the real question sometimes baffles even the ones managing things right behind the curtain. IP addresses have been around ever since the genesis of the internet took place.
Although, back in the early stages, the internet was just a mere reflection of what it has become today. IP addresses have been serving the same purpose throughout the advent of internet services and their advancements. But before we march towards the importance of this commonly used term, let’s just know what on Earth is an IP address.
The Importance of a Unique IP Address When It Comes to Search Engine Optimization
First, let me quickly define search engine optimization or SEO. SEO is the process of trying to get your web pages to rank highly in search engines for various keyword phrases. It is divided into two categories, on-page SEO and off-page SEO. On-page SEO refers to things you can do on your pages to help improve rankings. Things like using your keyword phrase in the URL, title, H1 tags, etc. Off-page SEO refers to things that are not done directly on your site but will help your pages rank in the search engines. What that basically means is building backlinks to your web pages.
So why are unique IP addresses important when it comes to search engine optimization? The head of Google’s spam team has said that “links to virtually hosted domains are treated the same as links to domains on dedicated IP addresses.” That sounds like it really doesn’t matter whether you are getting your links from unique IPs or not. However, he has also said that if you have thousands of sites linking to you and those sites are all on the same IP address, the page rank of those links will be diluted. He also said that thousands of links from the same IP address can raise some red flags.
To avoid building diluted backlinks or raising any red flags with Google’s spam team, it is important to have IP diversity in your link-building efforts. One way to do that is to use other people’s websites to build links back to your website. You can do this by participating in forums and linking back to your website, guest blogging on other people’s websites, using Web 2.0 sites, and basically using a number of different link-building techniques.
If you want to have your own link network, which is one of the most powerful ways of improving your search engine rankings, you will have to make sure that each of the sites in your network is on its own, unique IP. This will make running your own private link network more expensive, but it will also make it far more effective.
