Hosts that serve adult sites

[newreality]

I've had a difficult time finding a host that meets my needs (compiled list of a couple dozen requirements; % access, add-on domains with sep. stats, plus many others)

Now that I've found one, there is a drawback - they host adult sites. Are my sites ( 2 sites, one main and one add-on ) really being put at risk by being hosted by them?

I've asked if they can give a seperate C Block - they say yes, but don't kow how much this may cost and would have to check on it - once after the hosting plan is setup. The seems peculiar, they own their own and maintain their own servers. Are they being realistic?

Since this is mainly an optimization question; are sites sharing the same server space with adult sites being penalized for this?

[Marcia]

You won't get your own c-block, and I seriously doubt that any hosting outfit would bother with screening for an individual c-block if they take all kinds of sites. The way those usually work it is to assign to one until it's time to start on another - at any rate, with the ones I've dealt with. Unless they've got different servers in different locations but those all have the same conditions.

I use a couple of the type of hosts you're referring to, with multiple domains on one account, separate stats and individual control over each domain. Some out there take only family-friendly and others don't restrict.

That said, I've got a few sites with one such host and didn't know they took all types as long as the content was legal until after. It doesn't seem to have hurt anything but that can be chalked up to luck and I'm considering moving the sites just in case.

There are many of those - just look around some more if you're not comfortable with it.

[I, Brian]

I am not at all under the impression that mainstream hosting providers have their IPs banned by Google and co. - and especially not for hosting adult content.

Where hosting providers are penalised it usually makes news - Searchking's famous fun with PageRank, and GoDaddy blocking spiders from it's hosted sites.

I haven't seen anything to suggest that a mainstream provider such as LunarPages has been at all penalised by search engines - perhaps you have heard otherwise?

[Marcia]

If there's a lot of spam on a server Yahoo will ban the IP. I've heard of it happening.

[newreality]

I can see it Marcia, reviewing some of the host agreements - begining to find where hosts are assessing fines to sites that spam, aside from deleting from their servers without warning.

[I, Brian]

If there's a lot of spam on a server Yahoo will ban the IP. I've heard of it happening. Yes, DaveN mentioned that in this thread:
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2437

and NickW covered the forum response here:
http://www.threadwatch.org/node/237

If you're concerned that you might have be penalised by Yahoo!, through no fault of your own, then a Yahoo! rep here posted this advice:
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showpost.php?p=18537&postcount=4

Even still, I'm still not sure if this is going to be a major search engine policy, as it could effectively create a market for killing small sites simply by hosting dodgy content on the same server. With the webhosting market as it is, it shouldn't be difficult at all for sites outside of the dedicated hosting/clustering environment. So someone should nudge Yahoo! and point out that C class bans could lead to mom and pops being sledgehammered out of Yahoo!'s index.