Host has ALL sites on same IP - good or BAD?

[TheSeoGuy(nz)]

I've got 2 site owners wanting my help with their SE rankings, each of whom share an odd problem. Both are clients of the same web design company, who apparently like to set up ALL their hosted clients as subdomains, with all on the SAME IP address! (Names / IP's edited to prevent identification) E.g.

www.client1.com = 00.000.65.226
www.client2.com = 00.000.65.226
www.webdesign-hostcompany.com = 00.000.65.226

My first reaction is one of horror, because it seems to me to be a totally wrong thing to do, especially from an SEO perspective, e.g.;
1.) if any one site gets penalised by an SE, all are likely to suffer as the IP is the same
2.) incoming links to the site are not necessarily attibuted to the correct domain
3.) subdomains have less "weight" than proper domains
...etc

However, before I make any definitive statement to my clients, and suggest any drastic changes, I would like hear what anyone else has to say on the pros & cons of this issue.

Kind regards

Ben Kemp

aka The SEO Guy (nz)

[Webdog]

What was the thinking behind that?! I would have to agree with you that that course of action does nothing good and has a ton of built in problems waiting to happen.
Why on earth would companies allow their site to be a sub of another unless there was a strong central theme and the service was only available as a sub?
If each client is operating a business based on a format provided by the root, i.e. a hosted, third party business, well maybe... but the problems are still there.
Your example doesn;t show a sub domain format, just a shared IP.
That in itself is OK in my book, we do it ourselves. That isn't really the same as a sub domain, subdomain.root.com. At least not as I understand it.
Get them their own domain and IP.

[Marcia]

www.client1.com = 00.000.65.226
www.client2.com = 00.000.65.226
www.webdesign-hostcompany.com = 00.000.65.226That's not the major issue that I see, lots of sites are on shared IP and it depends on who's in the neighborhood. Some feel that links coming from the same IP or c-class may be devalued, but here's what I think is the biggest question to have answered:

There's a difference between true multiple domain hosting, which many web designers use as a convenience for clients. There's a master control panel, and each client domain is set up - even though it's a shared server - in it's own "partition" or space, much like each apartment is different in an apartment complex.

If the domain name for your people is resolving to www.theclient.com BUT the site is actually residing in a subdomain of the web designers site, not its own space, then that is *not* multiple domain hosting, that is using add-on domains and the site is accessible with the domain name URL or the subdomain URL - like http://theclient.webdesigner.com

Big difference between the two. Are the sites in question accessed both ways?

Basically it's rhetorical question to delve more deeply into it, but I agree 100% with the suggestion to take quality hosting with a unique IP rather than be just an add-on to someone else's site.

Note: make sure to NOT quote the posts and have a live link to those domains, one of them is pop-up hell.

[TheSeoGuy(nz)]

Marcia, thanks for previous comments... I have still not quite sorted out the real answer to your question, i.e. a definitive statement from the host.

However, both the clients certainly access their site's Content Management System via what looks like a subdomain to me e.g. http://client.dir.hostroot.com/admin/login

If you go to http://client.dir.hostroot.com you get the same content as you'd see at www.client.com - indicating that its probably a SUB-domain set-up.

Thanks

Ben

[Wilksy]

My first reaction is one of horror, because it seems to me to be a totally wrong thing to do, especially from an SEO perspective, e.g.;
1.) if any one site gets penalised by an SE, all are likely to suffer as the IP is the same
2.) incoming links to the site are not necessarily attibuted to the correct domain
3.) subdomains have less "weight" than proper domains
...etc

Hi Ben, good to see another Ben from our side of the World in the forums :)

Do a search for something in quotes and see if the content is mirrored as a subdomain on the webdesign companies site. If so you might have some issues with indexing the individual sites content (I'd go with 301's to the site from the subdomains).

Re: hosting on the same block, you wouldn't be doing anything aggressive enough to get them removed now would you ;-)

If the sites are clean (and judging from Marcias comments they are not) you'd have no problems at all, but I suspect they are a little dirty at least. It really depends upon the content of the sites, if there are multiple sites on the same topics you may run into issues.

Some feel that links coming from the same IP or c-class may be devalued, but here's what I think is the biggest question to have answered:

If the sites are clean and all represent different content (topics) within the same niche you will not be penalised. I know this for sure as I do a bit of work on a large network of travel sites that all contain different content, both structure and topic wise, that all come back to one overall theme. All of the sites rank so well, it's hard to believe that c-classes are devalued (depends what your doing with them).

I know that if the sites are naughty and similar or overlapping content your best to spread the hosting otherwise the links WILL be devalued.

me 2c