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Wordpress MU vs seperate sites

by adamfdotnet
13 replies
Hi,

I have a question regarding using Wordpress MU.

While it is great for managing multiple sites, is the fact that it is all within the same IP block (as a multi site) a problem?

Will it mean that linking between them would not be favored by Google?

Does this apply if you even use separate installs on the same host or the same account?

If this is the case, is it then better to have multiple sites spread across different providers so that you can allow the popularity of one to help boost the popularity of the other?

Thanks!

-Adam
#seperate #sites #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author adamfdotnet
    Do most people not use WordPress MU to manage their sites?

    -Adam
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  • Profile picture of the author adamfdotnet
    Maybe I should rephrase the question.

    Does Google throw the smack down on sites coming from the same MU install?I can't imagine they would given how many shared hosting sites are around... am I just paranoid?

    Wordpress MU would make managing 10 sites a lot easier....

    Thanks.

    -Adam
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  • Profile picture of the author Brian Alaway
    Rather than being penalized for cross linking on the same ip block, it's more likely that you may not receive as much link juice compared to backlinks on different c-class ips. Build a diversity of backlinks from different sources and it won't matter much.
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  • Profile picture of the author adamfdotnet
    Do people often use multiple hosting providers to be able to get onto totally different IP blocks?

    It sounds like from your response that this is probably less of an issue and maybe more Google-paranoia. With some good SEO and work on the sites, they could all be housed on the same shared host... correct?

    -Adam
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    • Profile picture of the author Brian Alaway
      If you were going to develop a network of your own blogs for the purpose of propagating backlinks to a money site then dispersing these links over different ip c-classes may prove beneficial. There are some hosts like SEO Hosting, a Hostgator sister site, that will give you, for a price, these different ip blocks. Or you could just use different hosts. But there are other factors which Google could use to help them determine that these were in fact sites all belonging to the same owner. So still no guarantee that all your links will get respect. If you build backlinks from different blogs, forums, articles, etc. then those links will naturally be distributed over many different ip blocks and the issue is mute.
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  • Profile picture of the author retsek
    If you enable Wordpress Network and you have your own Dedicated or VPS, then you can have multiple IP addresses available for it.

    So in practice, you have ONE database for all the blogs, ONE installation of the wordpress files, and multiple IP addresses available to assignment to the sites under the Network .....even across class C.

    For all this you work, you need:

    Wordpress Network enabled
    Donncha's Domain Mapping Plugin
    Good Knowledge of Apache & DNS - there's fat textbooks dedicated to these topics. Do your research and learn the basics.

    Here's more information:
    WordPress › Support » Domain mapping with different IP's and 1 installation on server.

    And final note, Ip addresses are scare. Even if you can afford it, you really don't need extra. I have two dedis with a few IPs and I host 4 installations of the Wordpress that run over 200 sites.

    The SEO argument, IMO, has a little weight. I can attest to that since I'm battling a competitor for a 200,000 search term and all his backlinks are from 6 sitewide links from other sites he owns on the same IP.
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    • Profile picture of the author pontarae
      Originally Posted by retsek View Post


      The SEO argument, IMO, has a little weight. I can attest to that since I'm battling a competitor for a 200,000 search term and all his backlinks are from 6 sitewide links from other sites he owns on the same IP.
      Excellent reply retsek.

      Only make one clarification, please. Do you mean that the "SEO argument", regarding backlinks all coming from a small number of IPs or C-block addresses having reduced authority, "has a little weight" - meaning is substantially true.

      Or do you mean to say the SEO argument "has little weight" - meaning substantially untrue? Your following sentence implies that it doesn't matter very much WHERE backlinks come from, they carry full value even if they are all on the same IP address.

      Thanks, dennis
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      • Profile picture of the author rhinocl
        Does using Wordpress MU make it harder to migrate a site if you sell it but keep the rest of your sites?
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        • Profile picture of the author retsek
          Originally Posted by rhinocl View Post

          Does using Wordpress MU make it harder to migrate a site if you sell it but keep the rest of your sites?
          Short answer is yes it does make it harder. But the benefits are worth it.

          While it's a easy to migrate the other tables, things get tricky when dealing with the wp_options table of a networked blog. That one is not directly compatible with regular wordpress.

          However, Wordpress Import and Export features work just fine and you can go that route.
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      • Profile picture of the author retsek
        Originally Posted by pontarae View Post

        Excellent reply retsek.

        Only make one clarification, please. Do you mean that the "SEO argument", regarding backlinks all coming from a small number of IPs or C-block addresses having reduced authority, "has a little weight" - meaning is substantially true.

        Or do you mean to say the SEO argument "has little weight" - meaning substantially untrue? Your following sentence implies that it doesn't matter very much WHERE backlinks come from, they carry full value even if they are all on the same IP address.

        Thanks, dennis
        I meant that I believe there is some Google science somewhere that says backlinks from the same IP address count less -- how much less is anybody's guess. But i also illustrated they are still effective as I have a hard time beating a competitor with 6 sitewide links on the same IP. Of course, other factors come in play with that such as domain ages and content.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kezz
    More important than anything else, and this is becoming ever more the case, is the level of quality your sites offer.

    If you have 20 outstanding sites on a WP network and it's clear that each one is a legitimate, stand alone resource that people enjoy visiting, that's what will get your Google rankings and your traffic. I use WP networks all the time and have never had an issue getting rankings for each, even when using subdomains. In some cases I've gotten page one rankings without even doing any optimization at all.

    If, on the other hand, you have 20 sites created just for the purpose of cross linking, populated with PLR or low cost articles, presented poorly and in generally shabby form, then you're not likely to get traction whether your on a network or not.

    They system is becoming smarter and smarter at identifying what people really want, which is just great sites to visit. If you make sure all your sites are great sites, the technical questions will fade into the background.
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    • Profile picture of the author John Hocking
      My biggest issue with MU sites is the performance and load times degrade as the posts increase. So one active site can bring down the rest. It is hard to get caching working with MU site install.
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      • Profile picture of the author retsek
        Originally Posted by John Hocking View Post

        My biggest issue with MU sites is the performance and load times degrade as the posts increase. So one active site can bring down the rest. It is hard to get caching working with MU site install.
        That would true be pre-version 3.0. W3TC works perfectly with networked blogs.

        Also the posts issue is an inherent Wordpress issue. I have single installs with 50,000+ (newspaper websites i manage). Even with caching, the wordpress queries were monster because of the traffic the sites get. The only solutions were switching to InnoDB and modifying the core files to prevent some of those unnecessary queries from even running.

        On another site, I implement a script that created a second wp_post table to hold archived posts, while the normal wp_posts table held just the recent 5000 posts. That approach also worked well in addition to Innodb.

        Now with Multisite, it's even less of a problem as each site have separate post tables. The performance benefits or negatives would be the same as if the sites were on the same server, but in different accounts.
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