Knowledge Base

Do you support IP canonicalization?

Yes, you can set up IP canonicalization for your account. IP canonicalization is a technique sometimes used for SEO (search engine optimization). When a site's IP address is canonicalized, the IP address redirects to the domain name.

For example, if visitors enter your IP address in their web browser, they should be redirected to or (where represents your domain name). Otherwise, a search engine may index your site under both the IP address and the domain name. This duplicate content could potentially harm your site's search engine ranking.

There is no guarantee that IP canonicalization will improve a site's search engine ranking. There are many SEO techniques available, and search engine providers (for obvious reasons) do not disclose which techniques hurt or help a site's ranking.


There are two requirements for setting up IP canonicalization:

  • You must have a dedicated IP address. If your account does not already have a dedicated IP address (such as a default shared hosting account), you must purchase one.
  • You must set up a rewrite rule in an .htaccess file that redirects your IP address to your domain name. For example, the following configuration lines demonstrate one possible implementation. Replace with your own IP address, and replace with your domain name:
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^xxx\.xxx\.xxx\.xxx

    For more information about how to use .htaccess files, please see this article.