Multiple sites on one server: is this really a problem?

miked · Jan 28, 2009

I've read in various places that having multiple sites on the same server could lead to penalties from Google against one or all of them, in order to protect against spam etc.

I have two questions, I suppose. Does anyone have any direct experience of this? Also, why should this be the case? Wordpress, for instance, seems to be liked by Google: of course blogs hosted with Wordpress themselves would probably count as being part of the same site, but some developers/domainers build many sites with Wordpress and still get their sites ranked highly, even though these are likely to be on the same server.

So, is it the case that Google applies this penalty? If so, what are the triggers? How is it applied? Any thoughts would be useful to us all on this, I'm sure.

Oh, and I realise that that's actually five questions...

Mike.

retired_member26 · Jan 28, 2009

I also as a beginner at seo would like to learn the answer of these questions.

monaghan · Jan 28, 2009

I think you'll only find this a problem if you cross link all your sites as the same IP range could suggest a link farm. If you have multiple sites that are seperate subject and have no natural linkage (or at least not large link volumes) you should be fine.

joned · Jan 29, 2009

As long as you're sticking to "White hat" methods you should be fine (with the interlinking caveat mentioned above). If you're going black-hat (or even slightly grey) put those on a different server. Do a search on "Bad neighborhood" (in realtion to SEO) for more info

Bluhatseo.com is also worth a read if you want to flirt with the Dark Side

Cheers, Jon

tifosi · Jan 29, 2009

Can you imagine the fallout if this was a fundemental part of the google algorithm?

Most 'sites' are based on reseller hosting of one kind or another where multiple sites are shoehorned onto a single virtual ip through server/apache. It's the only way to have billions of sites on a limited number of ip's and works well in practice.

The issue for google is 'how many of those sites are standalone' and how many are 'link-farms' or similar.

The issue for developers - especially portfolio developers, is how to avoid penalties when creating batches of small info-sites where there may be footer/inline links between sites, and what happens if there's a parent site and multiple child info-sites on the same c net IP as the parent.

There's a case for splitting between servers (and probably datcentres).

The jury's stll out. I think Matt Cutt's commented on it a while ago.

S

seanh · Jan 29, 2009

We do operate a number of sites on the same server and IP and have not experienced any problems with SEO and the like.

G will look at the number of sites and frequency of backlinks etc. If you have hundreds of sites all linking together then this will cause problems. If the sites do 'their own thing' then they will be seen as separate.

As previously mentioned, some reseller accounts operate under one IP and certainly one IP range which G will pickup on.

We use 3 hosting accounts at present all with diff companies to give us some options.

stender · Jan 29, 2009

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WeTalkBuiness · Jan 30, 2009

Well that doesn't really matter on how many sites you host on the same server. What matters are actually the SEO link building method. Instead of you're interlinking with all your sites, you will get links from other websites with UNIQUE IP addresses. That means all other places around the world if you wish your website is getting traffic fromt the globe.

So all links come from the same IP address in Google eyes will count as ONE only.