Redirect IP?

[TravG]

I ran a website through an SEO checker and one thing it said to do was to redirect my IP address via a 301 to redirect it to my domain name. Should I really do that? I know I haven't done that with other websites, thinking it was done with an "A" record instead. Just wondering what the best way to do it really is.

Thanks

[elgoog]

i don't understand.

redirect my IP address via a 301 to redirect it to my domain name

The ip of the domain of the website itself is not redirected i suppose?

[Sherlock]

A record is IMHO fine. Based on my experience, where I am changing IP addresses a lot and it does not seem to be strong SEO factor at all (unless [again maybe] the neighbours on same IP or maybe a pool are bad).

[TravG]

A record is IMHO fine. Based on my experience, where I am changing IP addresses a lot and it does not seem to be strong SEO factor at all (unless [again maybe] the neighbours on same IP or maybe a pool are bad).

Cool thanks. Its a dedicated IP so I shouldn't have the bad neighbor syndrome right?

[universal4]

I really think the days that everyone thinks there site has to have it's own dedicated IP and that it should never change are over. (personally I do not think the idea should ever had existed but..)

I agree with Sherlock that a change whether using a dedicate ip or not should not have any effect on seo, other than what he mentioned such as the bad neighborhood.

As for having the site actually answer on the ip by itself, I do not think it should, and actually can not if even 2 of your sites share an ip, unless you actually do redirect it to one of them, but then if the situation arises the ip needs to change, I think then it could hurt a little.

Rick
Universal4

[Former Member 14]

Google treats www, and non-www as 2 different sites, same as http and https. That's why you verfiy the ownership of all in Google Tools.

I've been using dedi IP's for years, and I most certainly use 301 redirects for all dedi IP's which are associated to active sites. All I know is... if lets say you have https ://xxx.xxx.xxx/ and also have https : //www.yourdomain.com and https: //yourdomain.com etc.., etc., etc... if your not doing a 301 redirect, all aforementioned url's AFAIK will be viewed by Google as separate sites, and thus duplicate content.

I run a server, not shared hosting, so maybe that's the difference

[universal4]

Websites and web servers should answer by NAME that is what dns is for

IIS or Apache is designed, to translate or answer the IP to the dns name of the website, although, if your site is answering on the ip address and the URL stays the IP, then yes, you should likely have an htaccess entry that rewrite the dns name of the website.

Rick
Universal4

[wonderpunter]

SEO checkers are usually outdated (still looking for alexa and dmoz scores)

[baldidiot]

Google treats www, and non-www as 2 different sites, same as http and https. That's why you verfiy the ownership of all in Google Tools.

Google understands https and http are the same ownership - they've been auto verifying https versions in GWT recently. I've had a few messages like this:

"Google Search Console has automatically verified you as the official owner of: [a https website]

This verification now allows your Google Analytics account to import Google Search data."

I hadn't added the https to GWT yet, only the http version was listed so this is all them.

[Sherlock]

Also since the content on www/nonwww and http/https is the same, Google shows just one of those and I suspect even passes over the "ranks" (or whatever it is nowadays instead of ranks).

[Sherlock]

I really think the days that everyone thinks there site has to have it's own dedicated IP and that it should never change are over. (personally I do not think the idea should ever had existed but..)

Yes. With cf and such services, that are used to avoid attacks and also for privacy, those times should be over and Google should reflect it.

But as was said, SEO services are outdated. The texts are just some fillers with no known context. Yes, even after 50 years we will read about DMOZ, which is a blatant case, but much more of nonsenses circulate around and it just makes things unclear. It is more and more important to at least try to have some picture of background how things work and derive reality from that picture. Trusting anything what we read is a way to asylum.

[Former Member 14]

Just to be clear, I never used IP to domain 301 redirects for anything related to SEO. At one point, was getting a heap of referral spam links. All pointing to my sites IP's, and a lot of other nefarious cr#p.

There was a time when Google and Matt Cutts et al, denied there was such as thing as 'negative SEO'. Eventually though, they conceded, and the "disavow' tool was implemented into GWMT.

I agree there is a LOT of bad, misleading, out-of-date, and more so, wrong SEO info STILL floating around.

[betcode]

Would not recommend this, just redirect all your non https + non www (Or the other way round) via your .htaccess file and leave IP redirect alone as there will be no SEO benefit unless your IP has backlinks pointing to it.

[universal4]

there will be no SEO benefit unless your IP has backlinks pointing to it.

This is one of the reasons why the web server should NOT answer with the header of IP address. (in fact in IIS it requires an EXTRA host header to do so)

If you end up having backlinks pointing to the IP, and then later change the IP address, you lose the benefit of those links, since they will now no longer resolve to your website.

Rick
Universal4

[betcode]

Yes fair point, there’s no good reason why you’d build backlinks pointing to IP anyway and you’re right if you switched IP you’d lose the juice.