Is having a dedicated IP address critical for achieving great Google rankings and if an IP address is shared among many sites, is the PageRank for each site diluted?
This is, believe it or not, still a very common question in the SEO world, despite the search engines addressing these concerns. Over at DigitalPoint a reader asks:
Does anyone have any current knowledge and or real life experience with the importance or lack of, having a dedicated IP address for your hosting account as far as Google Page Rank and other search engines are concerned? If you have 1 IP address and you add on domains, does that dilute page rank or trust? If it is shared and someone else’s website that shares the IP address gets Google slapped, does that impact my website or blog?
One reader refers to the 2006 post on the Matt Cutts blog which references a statement by Google’s Craig Silverstein in 2003 :
Actually, Google handles virtually hosted domains and their links just the same as domains on unique IP addresses. If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you’ll never see a difference between the two cases. We do see a small percentage of ISPs every month that misconfigure their virtual hosting, which might account for this persistent misperception–thanks for giving me the chance to dispel a myth!
Cutts adds “I’m happy to affirm that this statement which was true in 2003 is still true now. Links to virtually hosted domains are treated the same as links to domains on dedicated IP addresses.”
Of course if you have 1,000 sites running on the same IP address which all link to each other and to bad linking neighborhoods, the PageRank between those links which are being passed along should be diluted and if some of those sites are practicing questionable methods of, well, spamming Google … having them all grouped together should set off some kind of red flags.
On the other hand, such linking would not be natural, so if the sites were all hosted on separate IP’s, one would think that Google would still be able to identify the group of sites trading links back and forth (ie Link Farm), even if their hosting records or domain registar records shows no physical co relation between those sites, wouldn’t you think?
What are your views on hosting sites on dedicated vs. shared IP addresses?
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Comments
18 responses so far ↓
Fred on Mar 3, 2008 at 11:18 am
Loren,
Thanks for revisiting this issue that continues to keep popping up. While the search engine reps keep repeating that a shared IP doesn’t hurt your site, I don’t think it does a lot to *help* it either.
My company works a lot with small and medium sized businesses, and every now and again we see people tempted to save money by using cheap hosting. And while personally I think this is fine for most blogs, personal sites, etc., for the average business it’s just asking for trouble.
The biggest problem tangible problems tends to be email, not PageRank. i.e. IPs shared with sketchy sites that result in spam-related bounces. I can’t help but think that if email servers are savvy enough to pick up that an IP is dicey, search engine spiders will too (the degree to which is likely debatable).
There are also support horror-stories and other issues that occur in the cheap hosting world, which is something that web enthusisasts are hardened and can deal with, but again, for the average non-tech-savvy a business, it’s just a nightmare.
Even if there is a 0 direct relationship between search rankings and domain set-up, there’s a lot more to consider for the overall website ownership experience that one needs to consider… something which I guarantee the search engines won’t take a stance on.
Thanks,
Fred
www.hallme.com
www.hallme.com/blog
WebSite Design Orange County on Mar 3, 2008 at 11:22 am
We have quite a number of our clients on a shared server and have never noticed any problems with either PR or positioning due to a shared IP. We used to have each client with their own IP’s and recently switched to a shared server with absolutely no problems.
Michael Martinez on Mar 3, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I work with many domains on shared IP addresses. There is absolutely no problem with sharing IP addresses for search engine results.
Jaan Kanellis on Mar 3, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Agreed no issues with shared IP. As for your example of the spam websites it is the fact of how they are linking to each other that Google will find spammy not weather or not a 1000 domains are on shared IP or not. So yes they would find them spammy on different IPs as well.
Raghavan on Mar 4, 2008 at 12:09 am
Unless there is a cross linking of a kind between the websites sharing the same IP there shouldn’t be any problem I hope. I also learned that if websites sharing our IPs does some spammy works and banned from G it would also affect us.
Marios Alexandrou on Mar 4, 2008 at 11:46 am
I haven’t seen a difference either way, but there was a Bruce Clay article not too long ago that suggested improved rankings could be had with a dedicated IP. A tough one to prove, of course.
Utah SEO Pro on Mar 4, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I call bullshit on Google.
Clickfire on Mar 4, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Think of it this way. What aspect of dedicated or shared would return better results for Google users? None that I see.
James - Dolphin SEO on Mar 5, 2008 at 6:52 am
I cant say I have ever seen much difference between a dedicated server and a shared one. It wouldnt make much sense for Google to give priority to a dedicated server. Dedicated servers cost a lot more than shared so I am guessing that the majority of the sites on the net use a shared host.
I am sure Google would/does reduce the effect of interlinking sites on the same IP/Class C but I would hope websites wouldn’t be penalized for it.
Then again negative SEO seems to have been mentioned a bit recently so it wouldn’t be that much of a shock if Google penalized people for factors out of their control.
Raghavan on Mar 5, 2008 at 7:05 am
It is about shared IP and Dedicated IP and I too don’t see any difference between shared and dedicated server. It is the IP that is important. In shared server I think we have an option to purchase dedicated IP and some hosting companies do provide it if I’m not wrong. Again how do we find our bad neighbor if we are in the same Class C.
NikLP on Mar 5, 2008 at 7:12 am
Multiple sites on one IP (shared host) I wouldn’t see as an issue, but there is no specific mention here of sites that are part of a “blog network” or somesuch.
There is clearly a sound business case for keeping a collection of related blogs on one server, but is this the sort of scenario that would indeed be penalised? This is the exact question that is bothering me.
Raghavan on Mar 5, 2008 at 7:16 am
I don’t see a chance of penalization here
Ardi on Mar 5, 2008 at 7:42 am
1,000 sites running on the same IP address ? Many hosting providers do this.
Dedicated vs. shared IP addresses in SEO ? Now, I’m testing without linking each other. Is it different between Yahoo and Google ?
SEO Guide on Mar 5, 2008 at 9:21 am
So it really doesn’t matter as long as your link building practices go by SE rules. You will not be affected by other sites with black hat practices when sharing hosting?
Tony Nestor on Mar 5, 2008 at 9:50 am
I think the interesting point from Google is this “If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you’ll never see a difference between the two cases. ” - What does he mean by this exactly? Is this referring to correctly having reverse lookup setup correctly I guess?
SmarTy on Mar 5, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I guess the only difference with “probably better results on dedicated servers” is in speed - since we usually see better conditions for dedicated/VPS guys, while shared friends are basically limited in number of processes, mem. allocation etc.
John Raul Joven II on Mar 19, 2008 at 8:24 am
I recommend getting a dedicated IP address for professional sites (personal, business). It is important. Check out my blog post related to this.
Charles on Apr 14, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Thanks for all the comments!
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