Does having a static IP addresses make a difference in search rankings at Google?

Does having a static IP addresses make a difference in search rankings at Google? I have long believed so. Bruce Clay of www.bruceclay.com, one of the better search engine optimizers out there, was the first to point this out. If you analyze the top sites for just about any search phrase, many of them will have static IP addresses. Since only about 2% of websites have static IP addresses, finding a disproportionate amount of those at the top of the search engines must mean somthing. A static IP address is only one factor among many, but I’ve seen a site drop off the front page of results at Google into utter oblivion (not in the top 1000 results) when it changed its hosting company, and the new server it was on used dynamic IP addressing. I “rescued” this site mainly by getting it to change hosting companies to one that would give it a static IP address. Result: the site is back near the top of Google again. I make a static IP address a requirement of my SEO work on a site now. The main thing is to make it pass the Bruce Clay Redirect Test so it doesn’t looked “cloaked” to Google.