Is it possible to lose rank because my site's IP changed?

[danatanseo]

I manage a site on the 3dCart e-commerce platform. I recently updated the SSL certificate. Today, when I tried to log-in via FTP, I couldn't connect. The reason I couldn't connect was because my IP had changed.

Last week the site experienced almost across the board rankings drops on lmost every important keyword. Not gigantic drops, a lot just lost 2-4 postiions, but that's a lot when you were #2 and you drop to #4 or # 6.

Initially I thought it was because I was attempting to markup my product pages using structured data following guidelines from schema.org. I am not a coder so it was a real struggle, especially trying to navigate 3dCart's listing templates.

I thought the rankings drops were Google slapping me for bad code, but now I wonder....could I really have dropped down because of that IP address change?

Does anyone have a take on this? Thanks!

[AdamThompson]

I would rate that as unlikely. If you got a new IP to get an SSL, you're probably on a static IP, so it's not likely you got an IP that bad players are using.

There were a couple updates last week, including an EMD update and I believe a Panda refresh.

[danatanseo]

Thanks Adam. I know the EMD isn't an issue for us, and this site is extremely young (January of this year) and has never used any link schemes, link buying or any questionable SEO, so I'm not worried about Panda either. Just concerned that we held on to that #2 spot for a solid 6 months and then dropped.

I have heard that IP change most often doesn't effect SEO, unless the IP change moved to a different country. Since I am at the mercy of 3DCart, it's possible the country did change. I am trying to find out from them right now.

[danatanseo]

Okay, just heard back from 3DCart. The old IP and new IP are both USA. That being the case, I don't think that had anything to do with my ranking drop. Hopefully it's just a natural fluctuation.

Thanks Adam!