Via Web Hosting Unleashed, HostGator has announced a new niche hosting service — SEO Hosting. From its hosting plan page:
Our hosting plans are designed for those who require advanced Search Engine Optimization tools. Our customers know that the key to a successful SEO campaign begins at the foundation, their web hosting provider. SEO hosting customers have come to depend on the reliable, easy to use interface that we have developed for unsurpassable Search Engine Optimization.
Now, comparing their hosting plans with HostGator’s hosting plans, there is actually not much difference in terms of usual shared hosting plan metrics (disk, bandwidth, number of domains, etc) — they are both offering more than you need. The only difference as far as I can see is, the number of IP addresses that you get on your hosting plans.
When most shared hosting providers jam multiple websites onto the same IP address using name-based virtual hosting, SEO Hosting actually gives you multiple IP addresses on different class C networks. Plans start at $35/month for 5 IP addresses, going all the way up to 50+ IP addresses.
The idea is that you can build multiple inter-linking websites on different IP addresses, so that hopefully search engines would not think that they are in anyway “related”, i.e. operated by the same person. So that the links can be counted genuine, and the linked site get a boost in popularity. An SEO would actually go further than hosting sites on different IPs. They will make sure all domains are registered with different registrars under different names. They won’t use the same template on more than one site. They will try to erase all traces that these sites are run by the same guy. They have gone through all these troubles with one goal in mind — game the search engines to bring in more organic traffic.
I am not really into all these SEO business, but I think there is currently high demands in there because either (1) it actually works, or (2) people think it would work. The assumption is obviously that search engines will discount non-genuine links if two sites are found to be related (from IP address or WHOIS records). Search engines do that (if the assumption is true) for a reason — webmasters should not game the system to fake popularity. Now webmasters, SEO specialists and now even web hosting companies try to do more of that ethically-arguable practise, wouldn’t it make sense for search engines to ban that as well?!
So I will not be surprised if Google suddenly de-valued all sites hosted on SEO Hosting’s IP addresses. They probably will thank SEO Hosting for that — now all the dodgy SEOs are tractable on one hosting company’s network!
However, what bothers me the most is, what justifies a single shared hosting account to have 5 (or 50!!) IP addresses, when another hosting company is finding difficult to source enough IP addresses for its VPS customers?
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I’ve thought about this same ip issue myself. I’ve got 3 sites now on the same IP however they are 2 different company websites and the 3rd is a lead gen site for a phone number for one of the companies, 1300 phone word. They all link to each other because they are all related. It would suck that they get lower results because of same ip even though they individually can stand on their own and the only bit that makes them the same is the ip…
oh well hope this isn’t the case with legit sites on the same ip.
This is one of the things that still bug me if I was to build a network of websites. Currently, you can host unlimited domains with certain providers, but if we add the requirements of different IPs just to fool the search engines - it becomes an added overhead cost at the same time more headaches in managing the process.
Using the same ip for each of your sites linked togethor, is a potential problem. One way around it is to link your sites with third party sites thrown into the mix, so that no site with in your linking structure is linking to another site on the same IP. Instead, you link to a third party site, like Wordpress.com, that then links back to the second site on your server, and then link that site to say a Squidoo.com page that then links back to your original site.
With the increase of social networking sites, it has become very easy to build your netwrok of links outside of your own servers.
The cost of hosting on different providers really isn’t an issue, if your monetizing your sites. It really shouldn’t be that difficult to recoup $10 for hosting on another provider or paying $1 - $3 extra for another unique IP.
Kevin
I can’t wait to see how Google will treat SEO Hosting. Will they overtly punish the practice like they are beginning to do with paid links or just quietly figure out a way to detect and filter? There are other ways of discovering affiliations.
It will be too difficult for Google to penalize SEO Hosting because it’s very likely there may be legitimate domains on these IP’s (shared hosting) that are not doing any kind of SEO.
Regarding using Whois info, that can be it’s own slippery slope. There are many companies that register domains on behalf of others, or design/webmaster/consultants that manage on behalf or lease out domains. Each of these domains have different owners but maybe the same Whois information. And what about private registrations? They all look the same for each registrar.
I’m wondering what the fuss is to be honest, Google (as an example) have stated numerous times that having different IP addresses makes no difference to your rankings, so long as your shared hosting is configured properly.
From first hand experience, I can tell you that I have scene literally hundreds of domains hosted over the same IP address, they are indexed and consistently return top 1-5 results for their respective product.
Does anyone know what the consensus is amongst the SEO elite?
I have 10 sites all with shared IP’s. They all rank within the first 2-3 pages of google consistantly.
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