When you host your own professional site or blog, you have several hosting options. Many freelance writers use shared hosting accounts, especially when starting out. While it can be a cost-effective option until you need more resources, there's another concern -- shared IP addresses.
The IP address is basically a number that identifies the server you host your site or blog on. When you use a shared host, there could be hundreds of sites from hundreds of owners on a single server. But many hosts give you the option to pay a bit extra for a dedicated IP address. That's an IP address that's for your account only.
Why would you want a dedicated IP address?
I've been going through some drama with a shared account recently. When I comment on some blogs, my comments are regularly defaulted to the spam folder. That's more than a little hassle when you take the time to write thoughtful comments while networking.
Why does this happen? It happens because there's a "bad neighbor" on the shared host's IP address. Basically, if another customer is spamming people, the whole IP address can be put on blacklists. That means your own comments and emails might be flagged as spam. And when you run a business that's not acceptable.
I'm moving all of my sites that are on shared hosts off of them as soon as I can. But if you're not ready to do that, see if your host offers dedicated IPs at a bare minimum. It's at least worth looking into. It may explain why you don't always get through when you expect to.
Funny you should mention this, Jenn. I wondered about that the other day when some of my emails appeared not to get through. I’ve been wondering about a dedicated IP myself – though I have a fair few sites.
That’s what was happening to me. Emails to a few clients had problems and I had to change addresses, and then comments on a few blogs weren’t going through even though I never had problems before (when my site was on another hosting account).
If your sites are hosted under the same account, you can get one dedicated IP that will apply to all of your sites (just not anyone else’s). So no one else can affect you in spam filters. If you want domains to each have their own IP, you might have to put them on separate hosting accounts or at least get a reseller or vps account (or dedicated server) that lets you have multiple control panel installations. But that will depend on the control panel you use I imagine.
Thanks for the clarification, Jenn. I’ll have to sort out the best approach. I need to move the writing blog to avoid throttling, but the email is on a completely different domain and my portfolio site is on a third. This is the result of previous hosting problems – sigh!
Haha. I’ll take that to mean you’re with Bluehost. 😉 Good luck getting out of there. Working on that myself after making the mistake of signing up with them based on a few recommendations.
How did you guess? 🙁 They have been fine for the really small sites, but the writing blog is suffering. I’ve had several people recommend Inmotion and I think I’ll be going with them in June.
Unfortunately their specs didn’t quite meet my needs, but I have heard good things about them. 🙂
Bluehost is famous for their throttling issues. So easy call. 😉