15 replies to this topic

[smc_online]

Is there any benefit (for SEO purposes) to host websites on different Class C IP ranges? I have a few new accounts (all under one "master" client) and they all happen to be under the same class C ip. They are in the same industry but in different locales.

PS - I tried searching the forum for "class c" but did not find any thread discussing this topic. If it exits, please help direct me.

[Jill]

Check our domain and hosting forum where I'm moving this. I believe we've discussed this issue before.

[smc_online]

Thanks Jill! I did find the answer to my question in this thread.

[chrishirst]

I don't get why people STILL prattle on about "IP classes" when they were abandoned in 1994/95 when CIDR was adopted.

[Michael Martinez]

Because [url=http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15499]Seo Myths[/url] take a long, long time to die.

[Hans G.]

I know I'm late on this one. Here's a question I've always wanted to ask:

Does your choice of Web host have any effect whatsoever (negative or positive) on your Website's ability to rank well on the search engines? For instance, I wanted to purchase some sort of reseller account from a Web hosting company, and place all my sites under this account, along with the sites of any new clients I pick up. The only effect I can think of is uptime (if my site's down when the bots come) but virtually all of these companies claim a 99.9% uptime anyway. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Any considerations, things to look for, and as much detail is much appreciated.

[Michael Martinez]

Does your choice of Web host have any effect whatsoever (negative or positive) on your Website's ability to rank well on the search engines? For instance, I wanted to purchase some sort of reseller account from a Web hosting company, and place all my sites under this account, along with the sites of any new clients I pick up. The only effect I can think of is uptime (if my site's down when the bots come) but virtually all of these companies claim a 99.9% uptime anyway. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Any considerations, things to look for, and as much detail is much appreciated.

Some Webhosts are better connected to the Internet than others. Poor connectivity can inhibit crawling, slowing down the rate at which sites are indexed.

Some Webhosts are less powerful than others (I talking about servers, not ISP hosting services) and therefore they may not respond well to crawling. Poor responsiveness can slow down the rate at which a site is indexed.

Some Webhosts may not maintain good security over their networks or servers (you may be responsible for your security, for example) and hackers might have easy access to their resources.

Some Webhosts only offer very limited service, requiring you to use clunky templates or poor site structures.

There are a multitude of possible ways to evaluate a Web hosting service with respect to its impact on search engine optimization. Some are indeed better than others, although you cannot really judge them by cost.

[Jill]

If all your clients sell the same types of products or services and are competing on the same keyword phrases, I would recommend not having them all on the same server and IP.

While there's nothing wrong with it, I would be concerned that Google might think you're up to some funny stuff with one company actually owning all the websites and businesses.

[Hans G.]

Thanks Mike and Jill. Very helpful.

Mike, seems like there are indeed quite a few considerations to consider. I used to have my sites hosted with Yahoo, but they couldn't accommodate a database function I needed so I transferred to another service. Given the concerns you mentioned, is there a hosting company you'd recommend for me? You can pm this info if you'd like. I'd really appreciate your help.

If all your clients sell the same types of products or services and are competing on the same keyword phrases, I would recommend not having them all on the same server and IP.

Jill, they offer different services. But that raises a question I'm curious about. Is there anything wrong with various websites having the same IP Address? Would it be better to get unique IP Addresses for each domain?

[PatrickGer]

I used to wonder about this before...wondering what class C IP addresses actually were (and why everyone says "from different class C IP addresses" instead of simply "from different IP addresses"). I did some research, or well tried to but never figured out what was up with that.

What I remember reading is this:

An IP address consist of 4 octets...as in 4 different parts of the IP address that have a number of 8 1's / 0's. However to make it shorter the 01100110 or w/e isn't used in practice, but other numbers (this part isn't really important admittedly ).

Also the first, or the first+second or the first,second+third octets are used to identify the Network.....the larger the network the more numbers they need for it.

For class A IP addresses (large multinational companies and the like) there aren't that many different IP addresses (as there aren't that many large multinational companies), thus only the first octet is used for the network address.

Then there are class B IP addresses for which the first 2 octets are needed / used to identify the address in the network, because there are many more college campuses and the like.

then there are class C IP addresses for which the first 3 octets are needed/ used b/c there are tons of small businesses, etc. which are typicall assigned class C IP addresses.

And the remaining 1-3 octets are used to identify the host in that network.

I have no idea if the above is correct (Im afraid someone will tell me its awfully wrong lol, but thats what I remember reading about the class C IP thing....and it made me wonder:

Why is every SEO talking about "links fro mdifferent class C IP addresses", when (in case the above was correct), you could/should simply say "from different/unique IP addresses" (without the fancy sounding "class C"), as class C IP addresses seems to imply that you will only ever consider getting links from small businesses and the like (but exclude large multinational companies and/or colleges etc.)

Is anything of the above correct?LOL

Would appreciate a link explaining the class C IP thing (what it was and why it doesnt exist) in case there isn't a brief reply to this stuff! ;-) thanks

[Jill]

But that raises a question I'm curious about. Is there anything wrong with various websites having the same IP Address?

No.

[Ron Carnell]

Why is every SEO talking about "links fro mdifferent class C IP addresses", when (in case the above was correct), you could/should simply say "from different/unique IP addresses" (without the fancy sounding "class C") ...

Because it's not at all unusual for one person or company to control multiple IP addresses. This dedicated server that Jill runs the forums on, for example, probably has at least five IP addresses assigned to it, and knowing Jill, possibly quite a few more. Those are all different IP addresses. Chances are real good, however, that all of those IP addresses Jill controls are contiguous and belong to the same class C block. She could, in theory, assign a different IP address to every site she owns and it would still be patently obvious to anyone looking at the IP addresses that they were owned by the same person. The paranoid often think this reveals too much information to the search engines.

Personally, I don't think Google cares a twit about who owns this or that web site. They do, however, care how those web sites link to each other. You can hide behind different class C addresses, you can put all your sites on different servers, you can even use servers in different geographical locations, and you STILL won't be able to hide from a graphical link analysis. Sites owned in common that link to each other (and there's nothing wrong with that most of the time!) will create little graphical islands sitting in a sea of links that otherwise criss-cross the entire Internet. They're every bit as obvious to the naked eye as an island sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean ...

... no matter how many IP addresses you use.

[Michael Martinez]

Mike, seems like there are indeed quite a few considerations to consider. I used to have my sites hosted with Yahoo, but they couldn't accommodate a database function I needed so I transferred to another service. Given the concerns you mentioned, is there a hosting company you'd recommend for me? You can pm this info if you'd like. I'd really appreciate your help.

While I can certainly say good things about a few Webhosts I've worked with over the years, I have no idea of whether they would be a good match for you. You really need to develop a firm list of feature requirements, decide your price range, and then go hunting (which can then include asking for opinions).

Perhaps you should browse Jill's Domain, Hosting and Registrar Questions forum and maybe post a list of feature requirements there. You may get several helpful suggestions.

[Hans G.]

Thank you all for your help!

[Randy]

for Ron!

That's exactly the reason I never understood the whole Class C/IP theoretical either. It's just so very much easier for Google to look at link graph information they already have than to introduce a highly questionable other variable into the mix. The class C penalty never made any sense to me.

As far as linking sites you own together, it's simply not a problem if you do two things.

1. Link only where it makes sense to.
2. Don't ever do anything with any of your sites that clearly crosses the line of good intentions.

I have for years linked some of my sites directly to other sites of mine, where it makes sense to do so. And even if it doesn't necessarily make sense to link directly from one site to another I still manage to pass some link value through, at least with my e-commerce sites. I'm pretty sure all or most of those sites that are truly mine and under my sole control all link back to a Corporate type of site, so that buyers with questions can clearly see who they're dealing with. And of course the corporate site links out to every one of my e-commerece sites.

So each of my sites feeds the corporate site. And the corporate site in turn feeds all of my e-comm sites. Then for those e-comm sites have a common appeal also link directly.

Never had a problem one with this set up. I make it very clear who's who and what's what. And stay on the right side of the line in the sand.

In fact, if I had to guess I would hazard to guess that I get an advantage with this setup for my new sites that I'm constantly launching. Because they know me through knowing my sites, and because I link to these new sites through my little network prior to starting a real link building campaign, these brand new sites tend to get spidered pretty darned quickly and deeply right from the get go. Not that I rest on my laurels mind you. I do kick off real linking campaigns right after launch so that I don't end up with all or even most linking coming from my own sites. But I do think I get a bit of an advantage with my new sites because they get some early, high quality links that just happen to be from my network.

Going back to a question Hans asked above...

No there is nothing wrong with sites sharing IP addresses. I also have this sort of setup, where my e-comm site may be the default site on an IP number (because it needs an SSL certificate for secure order taking) and I might have another dozen sites that share this IP number that don't require the SSL side of things.

For all intents and purposes the SSL issue is the only thing that pretty much requires a separate IP number. There are ways around this too, but I don't fool with them personally since each unique IP only costs me like $2 per month. It's simply not worth the hassle for me to have to hump through hoops over a whopping $24 per year for any site.