Is A Hostgator Shared Account Bad For SEO?

[Krishna876]

Hey Warriors, quick question.

I have a shared account with hostgator which means that my websites share the same ip with a few other people. What are the chances that my website rankings will be affected by the other people sharing my ip? What if I have someone hammering their site with spam links from scrapebox or something similar? Wouldn't that have a negative effect on my websites as well?

Thanks...

[tpw]

No.

If thousands of domains on one idea was a bad idea, then the internet would have closed down years ago, because there are not enough IPs to go around...

[Krishna876]

That makes sense. I hope you're right...

Thanks

[tpw]

Originally Posted by Krishna876

That makes sense. I hope you're right...

Thanks

Some people will argue with me, but I am right.

Those who argue are generally trying to sell "Different C-Class IP's" to increase their revenue...

The pitch is based on their need to sell more IP's, rather than any SEO question... LOL

[Alfredo Carrion]

There are plenty of people who use shared hosting services though. Just get a private one if you have plenty of websites and/or can afford it.

[webapex]

Being hosted in a "Bad neighborhood" could be a factor, the offending site would have to be really bad, probably violating hosting TOS, an online reverse IP tool can reveal the other domains on your IP, it's also useful to identify the biggest traffic sites on your server should your site suddenly get slowed down.

[Kevin Tan]

I don't see why would a Hostgator shared account be bad for SEO.
Rather like webapex has pointed out being hosted in a "Bad neighborhood"
could be a concern for shared accounts.

[Tony Dean]

I don't see anyhting wrong with shared i.p.

But - the really cheapest of cheap webhosting will always attract the scoundrel and that's the place to avoid.

[DebbieD]

I have shared hosting and it hasn't affected my sites ranking in the least.

[pribs]

I've been on a Hostgator shared hosting plan for around 3 years and have several sites with page 1 rankings (probably around 10 or 15). Never had any problem with it at all.

But the others make a very good point, if you were in a "bad neighborhood" it could possibly affect your site negatively.

[Ray Jonnes]

I got about 40 autoblogs on Baby Plan Hostgator and this is OK

[dean3265]

Isn't speed of load and reliability the important factors? Merely sharing an ip with a bad site shouldn't affect your own rating.

[Steven Heron]

Originally Posted by tpw

Some people will argue with me, but I am right.

Those who argue are generally trying to sell "Different C-Class IP's" to increase their revenue...

The pitch is based on their need to sell more IP's, rather than any SEO question... LOL

C-Class IP's serve a different purpose, and are most often also shared. They're for interlinking your own sites to avoid detection, which has nothing to do with sharing an IP with other people.

[Monja]

hey -
here my two cents:
i wouldn´t host my website on a shared server. the problem with a shared server is that your website could be in a "bad neighborhood" and as far as i know and heard google could penalize you for that - but even if not - what weighs more:
if one of these 1000 website on the shared server gets a virus it can also damage yours. therefore i would invest into a dedicated server - there are some cheaper ones, i know they are a bit pricy in the US

[Dele]

I do not think hosting on a shared server poses that much risk since a significantly large percentage of webmasters are on shared hosting and obviously there would have been hues and cries on most forums as to its negative consequences to them.

[yukon]

I've never had a problem with shared hosting on Hostgator.

The shared hosting has zero impact on seo.

[Krishna876]

Thanks for the info guys.. I did a reverse ip lookup and got this message from the site:

"It appears that the web server located at 173.192.XXX.XX may be hosting one or more web sites with explicit content. The web sites in question are highlighted in red below. There is a possibility that all of the web sites on this web server may be blocked by web filtering software. Search engine rankings for these web sites may be affected as well."

The funny thing is that none of the sites that were highlighted in red were explicit sites. They just have the word "adult" in the url.

I randomly looked through a few of the sites that I share the ip with and I dont seem to be in a bad neighborhood. More like a newbie neighborhood with barely any completed sites...

Anyway, I figure if sharing an ip was having a negative effect on websites, I would be getting some specific examples of people's bad experiences and so far, most people have been saying they have no problems so I think I should be fine.

Thanks...

[Steven Heron]

Just remember, that is what "some sites" says, which, means nothing.

[SEOlover]

Aseohosting.com is the best company to have SEO hosting from.
Just my point of view!

[bl4ck-dollar]

Sorry bit old an late but HostGator have their own seo host company right here:

http://www.seohosting.com/

[BarryWheeler]

Originally Posted by Monja

hey -
here my two cents:
i wouldn´t host my website on a shared server. the problem with a shared server is that your website could be in a "bad neighborhood" and as far as i know and heard google could penalize you for that - but even if not - what weighs more:
if one of these 1000 website on the shared server gets a virus it can also damage yours. therefore i would invest into a dedicated server - there are some cheaper ones, i know they are a bit pricy in the US

Here's my two cents - you're out to lunch.

Shared IPs are the basis of many sites / servers. Being on a shared server will have little to no impact at all. Being a part of a "bad neighborhood" as you say it, isn't about where you're hosted but more with who you are linking to.

The only factor which we know is applied is performance of the site. If it's slow to load because of a heavy server load, it will contribute to a bad user experience.

[domainmadness]

I just want to ask this since I havent got clear answer after looking from everywhere.

I got also shared account at HostGator. I got 4 sites with same niche, and few with completely different niche. Each of those 4 sites have unique content, unique design, unique everything. Is it bad for SEO to link those 4 sites? Or link from 3 sites to 1 "authority" site?

I guess its bad to link from those other niche sites, but how about when sites are very much related?

[derekwong28]

All is well if neither you or any others do any naughty stuff on that ip. But if a person does something naughty, then the following may happen.

1. His site triggers a manual review by Google of all the other sites on that ip. Google is looking for other similar sites that may be owned by the same person. Obviously, mistakes can be made during manual review and your sites may get banned or penalized inadvertently.

2. Some uses his account to send out spam e-mail. In which case, the ip may be blacklisted and you may have problems in sending out messages from your account.

[VladWorks]

Most of my clients are on either Host Gator or GoDaddy shared accounts and we have no issues ranking them.

Having said that, there is value in having an IP in the country you are trying to rank. So if you are ranking in UK try to use a UK host.

Oh and watch out about GoDaddy...they often host your sites in Singapore!

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by derekwong28

All is well if neither you or any others do any naughty stuff on that ip. But if a person does something naughty, then the following may happen.

1. His site triggers a manual review by Google of all the other sites on that ip. Google is looking for other similar sites that may be owned by the same person. Obviously, mistakes can be made during manual review and your sites may get banned or penalized inadvertently.

2. Some uses his account to send out spam e-mail. In which case, the ip may be blacklisted and you may have problems in sending out messages from your account.

The problem with that thinking is that I have yet to see a reputable host
get spanked. If someone has anything on a reputable host getting shut down,
like hostgator, I'm all ears. It also does not work for free wordpress and blogspot
blogs. They have thousands on the same IP. Same with squidoo. Obviously,
nobody is going to slap all sites on those IPs. That is, if you make one bad
lens, all lenses on squidoo do not get slapped. One scammy blog on blogspot
is not going to shut the other thousands down on the same IP.

It's not even about the company you keep. Godaddy, hostgator, etc, have your
site on the same server as porn, drug, viagra, and other stuff.

If you choose to deal with a junk, crappy host, then you will have more problems
than just an IP getting hurt.

Like the man said at the beginning. There aint enough IPs to go around, and people
really need to know what "IP" actually means.

The world runs on shared servers, from wikipedia to amazon, from digital point to
target.

Even if you had 1,000 sites hosted by hostgator, the chances of them all being
on the same server are kind of slim. They would probably be assigned randomly
to their gaggle of servers.

Paul

[derekwong28]

Originally Posted by paulgl

The problem with that thinking is that I have yet to see a reputable host
get spanked. If someone has anything on a reputable host getting shut down,
like hostgator, I'm all ears. It also does not work for free wordpress and blogspot
blogs. They have thousands on the same IP. Same with squidoo. Obviously,
nobody is going to slap all sites on those IPs. That is, if you make one bad
lens, all lenses on squidoo do not get slapped. One scammy blog on blogspot
is not going to shut the other thousands down on the same IP.

It's not even about the company you keep. Godaddy, hostgator, etc, have your
site on the same server as porn, drug, viagra, and other stuff.

If you choose to deal with a junk, crappy host, then you will have more problems
than just an IP getting hurt.

Like the man said at the beginning. There aint enough IPs to go around, and people
really need to know what "IP" actually means.

The world runs on shared servers, from wikipedia to amazon, from digital point to
target.

Even if you had 1,000 sites hosted by hostgator, the chances of them all being
on the same server are kind of slim. They would probably be assigned randomly
to their gaggle of servers.

Paul

Paul, I am not talking about a host. I am talking about just a single ip or Class C cluster.

I am also specifically about a manual review with the intention to de-index rather than to re-rank sites.

I am 100% certain about this because it had happened to me many times involving more than 1000 sites. I admit that Google does not many of my sites. But the banning always go by individual ips and it is abundantly clear they have done a manual review. The problem is that sometimes it is indiscriminate and I have a high quality sites with unique content banned as well. This includes a sites with an M.A. theses.

Obviously, the more sites under that ip, the more difficult it is for Google to do a manual review. I suppose if you have 1000+ sites under than ip, Google will not review that as it is too much work for them. That is why for dubious sites, I prefer to hide behind as many other websites by other people as possible.

[vikramd]

Host Gator is fine but if your host is "saturated" then you're gonna get screwed with ranking.

I was on Scala Host and on pg1 but my page load times were slow.

I moved to a faster host and immediately moved up.

You can measure page load times if you setup Google Analytics & Webmaster tools.

[redbearing]

I have been using the same hostgator baby croc plan for more than 3 years and have more than 20 blogs on it. So far, most of the sites have pretty decent serps

[domainmadness]

Yeah, I agree that theres really no huge issues with shared hosting, but what is still quite unclear, how about if those websites under my shared hosting accounts links to each other?

[Mikeys]

I've been hacked before because my neighbor on the shared hosting account got hacked.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by derekwong28

Paul, I am not talking about a host. I am talking about just a single ip or Class C cluster.

That is why for dubious sites, I prefer to hide behind as many other websites by other people as possible.

Big sites have other big sites on the same IP. There is no problem.

Just stop doing "dubious" sites and you have will have no problem.

If you choose to have dubious sites, hiding won't help.

As far as speed, get real people. This is 2011. Servers, even the cheap
ones from reputable hosts are quite fast and quite reliable. How many
blogspot blogs do you think google hosts on the same server? Thousands.
Mine load in the blink of an eye.

Paul

[dburk]

Originally Posted by BarryWheeler

Here's my two cents - you're out to lunch.

Shared IPs are the basis of many sites / servers. Being on a shared server will have little to no impact at all. Being a part of a "bad neighborhood" as you say it, isn't about where you're hosted but more with who you are linking to.

The only factor which we know is applied is performance of the site. If it's slow to load because of a heavy server load, it will contribute to a bad user experience.

Hi Barry,

Thanks for helping to reduce the FUD being spread daily on this forum.


@Monja,

Search engines don't hold you accountable for what is on a shared server or IP address, however they do hold you accountable for who you link to. Linking to a bad neighborhood can and usually does affect your rankings.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by wallalbert

Google penalizes sites with the same C class for linking to each other.

Hi wallalbert,

That is total pure bunk. I challenge you to provide a single example where a site was penalized because of linking to page on the same C class. I bet you cannot show me a single example of a penalty caused by a link to the exact same IP or even the exact same domain. That just doesn't happen.

But hey, it makes a good pitch to sell a grossly over priced service that scams people out of their money through the tactic of FUD.

Originally Posted by wallalbert

For Web hosts and their customers, this can be an understandably frustrating issue, since certain sites have similar themed content and may wish to host their Web sites in one location.
This was one of the considerations in Host Gator's recent launch of hosting services enhanced for search engine optimization under the brand, SEO Hosting. The service includes all the expected SEO capabilities, but more importantly, customers can use it to optimize their Web sites for search engines by enabling them to host on multiple C classes.

Thanks
[Spam Link Removed]

Translation: If you are desperate to overpay for a needless service due to a baseless fear we are more than happy to scam er... help you out of your money.

In most cases the cost of providing so call "SEO Hosting" is virtually identical to regular hosting. All that is required is a slightly different DNS server configuration and of course the cost of a separate pricing plan. And all for no genuine "SEO" benefit.

What next, anti-sandbox hosting? How about anti-climate change hosting? Oh yeah that scam is well under way too.

[idreesfarooq]

Nothing to worry about shared hosting. It has nothing impact on your SEO

[bharatnt]

Yes, I personally use shared hosting from hostgator for all of my sites and I never had a problem.

I want you to think this, if we are thinking this much that "we will be affected if someone else get spammy links" then why would someone get spammy links on their own site.

I have been using Scrapebox for long time now. I and all that I know use Scrapebox and xrumer type of softwares on high authority sites like hubpages and squidoo. Why would someone put their ranking on risk by using scrapebox directly on their site???

[simonbuzz]

The answer is simply NO....

[BarryWheeler]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Barry,

Thanks for helping to reduce the FUD being spread daily on this forum.


@Monja,

Search engines don't hold you accountable for what is on a shared server or IP address, however they do hold you accountable for who you link to. Linking to a bad neighborhood can and usually does affect your rankings.

You're welcome Paul!

@monja,

I run a web hosting company for many local companies in my area. I offer both VPS and shared hosting. One client had an SEO get their entire site delisted, the domain blacklisted for being a spammer and god only knows what else that went on with this poor company's website.

The other clients on the server - zero effect on their ranking! NADDA! No one else was affected, not even for email because of how we (my partners and I) have the email systems setup on the shared accounts.

The site that got de-indexed, well, they moved hosting companies because their SEO told them it was our server. Guess what, it's been 7 months. They are still de-indexed. I guess moving hosts fixed it huh?

[rotten72]

Originally Posted by tpw

Some people will argue with me, but I am right.

Yes you are!

[design2convert]

NO man!!! who said this ???