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SEO - Multiple Domains On One Hosting Account?

by Bulldozer
26 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I want to start another AdSense site.
Since I am really short on money and every dollar counts for me, I started toying with the idea of buying only a new domain name and saving the money for the hosting, by using the hosting account that I already have from my other site. So, is this a good idea (SEO & Rankings-wise)?

I did a search on the internet and there seem to be two general opinions on this subject.
  • Opinion #1: Having multiple sites hosted on the same hosting account but under different domains is bad. Google sees that all those sites have the same server IP and this affects backlink building because all the backlinks for the different domains that you build will point to the same physical IP and this is especially bad if you want to cross-link build.
  • Opinion #2: Having multiple sites hosted on the same hosting account but under different domains does not afect rankings and SEO at all, because Google indexes and ranks PAGES, not sites and domains. Google does not care if there are other domains, linking to your server's IP, as long as the content on your pages is well SEO-ed and of good value.

I understand that the best way to go is to pay the extra bucks for a new hosting account - just to make sure.
But I still would like to know which one of these opinions is closer to the truth? I assume that both are more or less flawed/incomplete.
#account #domains #hosting #multiple #seo
  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
    I find it quite odd that this question keeps popping up.

    The big sites that google loves do not care about this.
    They have multiple sites on the same IP, interlink, and
    nothing bad happens.

    This question only must popup due to host sellers scaring
    people. The real world runs on shared servers. From amazon
    to wikipedia, from failblog to gasbuddy, from ebay to target.

    And since subdomains are looked upon as separate domains,
    what would this myth do to the people that use subdomains?

    Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author Bulldozer
      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      I find it quite odd that this question keeps popping up.

      The big sites that google loves do not care about this.
      They have multiple sites on the same IP, interlink, and
      nothing bad happens.

      This question only must popup due to host sellers scaring
      people. The real world runs on shared servers. From amazon
      to wikipedia, from failblog to gasbuddy, from ebay to target.

      And since subdomains are looked upon as separate domains,
      what would this myth do to the people that use subdomains?

      Paul

      Thanks for your reply.

      I guess this question keeps popping up because newbies like myself keep searching for a definitive answer and are not finding it.

      I did not know that different hosting accounts shared the same IP.
      Of course, all hosting accounts on a hosting provider exist on the same shared server(s), but I thought that a different IP was assigned to every different hosting account, regardless of the fact that they all live on the same server.

      Let me check if I got it right: Every time you buy a new hosting account from the same hosting provider, your new site will get the same IP as all the rest that you have previously ordered from them and this will also be the same IP that all other hosted sites share?
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  • Profile picture of the author JamesGw
    Nothing bad will happen if you interlink sites on the same c-block, but the popular consensus in the SEO community is that Google will devalue these links because it assumes they are owned by the same people. That said, you can get SEO hosting which gives you multiple c-blocks. It's more expensive, but might be worth it if you want to do a serious link building campaign.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bulldozer
    ^ Thanks, I guess I will just check if my hosting provider allows for multiple domains to be used with my hosting account.
    If they allow this and if it is easy to setup, I will just use my already existent hosting account.
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  • Profile picture of the author Charles Washington
    I would not link my sites together. You need backlinks from multiple C-blocks.

    As far as hosting multiple sites on one hosting account, I am ALL for it. In fact, one of my hostgator accounts has 30 autoblogs (exact match domains) on it.

    Here is why hosting multiple sites on one account doesnt matter. You are using SHARED HOSTING! If you only have one site on the account, you still have hundreds, if not thousands of sites on the same servers fro mother hosting customers.

    Host multiple sites on one acount...Yes
    Intermink those sites...NO
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    • Profile picture of the author Bulldozer
      Originally Posted by Charles Montgomery View Post

      Here is why hosting multiple sites on one account doesnt matter. You are using SHARED HOSTING! If you only have one site on the account, you still have hundreds, if not thousands of sites on the same servers fro mother hosting customers.
      Yes, but I think that all sites that are hosted on the same shared server have different IPs assigned to them, because they are using different hosting accounts. At least this is what I think but I could be wrong.

      So, if I use the same hosting account for many domains, the IPs of all those sites will be the same.
      However, if I buy a new hosting account on the same shared server, the new web site will have a different IP.

      All I know for sure is that Google does care about IPs. And that's just the reality of it.

      For example: it is a well known fact that Big G uses site IP information to determine what country a web site originates from and then determines your site's ranking and global visibility, based on that - your site's IP!
      Knowing Google, I assume that they use site IP information for much more than just determining country of origin.
      So, I guess it would be safer to just pay for separate hosting and not get involved with Google's IP ranking algorithms.
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  • Profile picture of the author Big__Lebowski
    Yes, but I think that all sites that are hosted on the same shared server have different IPs assigned to them, because they are using different hosting accounts. At least this is what I think but I could be wrong.
    no IP is assigned to Server not to single account on that Server. So all domains on that computer have same IP

    So, if I use the same hosting account for many domains, the IPs of all those sites will be the same.
    However, if I buy a new hosting account on the same shared server, the new web site will have a different IP.
    it depends, you culd heve 2nd account on different server than 1st
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  • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
    I recently set up 15 websites on IXwebhosting (and they gave me 15 unique IPs) for like $6 bucks a month. I found a 20% off code to get it that cheap, though.
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  • Profile picture of the author Charles Washington
    Go here Reverse IP Lookup - Find Other Web Sites Hosted on a Web Server and enter a website that you know to be on shared hosting. It will show you how many sites are on that i.p. I did it for one of mine. There are 798 sites on the same IP as one of my sites.
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    • Profile picture of the author Bulldozer
      Originally Posted by Charles Montgomery View Post

      Go here Reverse IP Lookup - Find Other Web Sites Hosted on a Web Server and enter a website that you know to be on shared hosting. It will show you how many sites are on that i.p. I did it for one of mine. There are 798 sites on the same IP as one of my sites.
      Oh my god!
      The tool reports the following about my site:

      It appears that the web server located at 178.142.67.115 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.
      Jesus!
      I did not know that I am sharing my IP with several porn sites!
      So now my site is getting filtered and blocked by all sorts of online firewalls because of the few porn sites that are hosted on the same server.
      And the scariest part is that Google is noticing this too and is messing up my ranking!

      The *******s from GoDaddy.com did not tell me about this in advance.
      Problem is that I don't think there is a hosting provider that will give away such information in advance - otherwise no body would be buying hteir services!

      What is the solution? Upgrade to a non-shared hosting plan? Because if it is... they cost a lot and I will just pass.
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      • Profile picture of the author sethjared
        Originally Posted by Bulldozer View Post

        Oh my god!
        The tool reports the following about my site:

        It appears that the web server located at 178.142.67.115 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.
        Jesus!
        I did not know that I am sharing my IP with several porn sites!
        So now my site is getting filtered and blocked by all sorts of online firewalls because of the few porn sites that are hosted on the same server.
        And the scariest part is that Google is noticing this too and is messing up my ranking!

        The *******s from GoDaddy.com did not tell me about this in advance.
        Problem is that I don't think there is a hosting provider that will give away such information in advance - otherwise no body would be buying hteir services!

        What is the solution? Upgrade to a non-shared hosting plan? Because if it is... they cost a lot and I will just pass.
        I wouldn't worry about that message. Google recognizes that most sites are on shared servers. If you were penalized for your "neighbors" activities then the web would be a mess. It takes some major malfeasance to bring down a whole ip especially on one of the larger web hosts.

        I don't have enough posts to post a link, so just google "google matt cutts virtual ip"

        I also saw a similar message on one of my hosts and freaked out, then I looked at the "flagged" sites and some of them weren't even porn or adult at all, they just had weird names.

        Also I have friends who have nice, respected PR 4 blogs and they link to their smaller sites on the same server and still get PR and are fine. It's those blatant manipulations that are trouble. Like, you set up spam links to a site to get a PR5 and the site is about screen doors, then you link to a thin site about salad dressing. That's fishy. But in the case of my friend, his site is about filmmaking hosted on bluehost, and he has about 3 other mini sites relevant to various aspects of making movies and they are all interlinked and do just fine.
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  • Profile picture of the author Charles Washington
    ^^^ All shared hosting is going to have "bad" sites. I got the same warning. I can almost assure you that your hosting is not the problem, it is something else directly with your site.

    But yes, the only way to control what sites are on the same IP is to go with a VPS or other dedicated type hosting.
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  • Profile picture of the author bmcgoff
    Use Bluehost. I know nothing about hosting, but I started buying domains (and hosting) from them, and I haven't hit my limit yet (on one hosting account). and I have about 16 sites. A reverse IP search shows there's' only like 350 sites sharing and none of them are questionable.
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  • Profile picture of the author gittar1122
    I am using 4-5 Shared Hosting from different companies and on each server there are min 1000 sites on each IP, there is nothing bad happening to my site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      I doubt with adding one more site you are going to have an issue but if you are concerned why not head over to webhosting talk and find a special on hosting at less than $2 per month?
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      • Profile picture of the author larkykid
        Hey, just had to revisit this question. I have a few sites on the same shared hosting account. I have noticed an issue with my first 2 domains that I had put on it. First domain was quite far down the serps and the second was on page 4 (I know, still quite far ). The first domain eventually got to page 1 after doing the google dance to around the #4 position. But the second domain disappeared out of the serps. After about 3 months, the second domain came back to about the #35 - #40 position. But then at the same time, the first domain also disappeared from the serps.

        Now, to me this does not look like a coincidence and perhaps something to do with the fact that both sites are on the same hosting account to be behaving this way. So no theories as to what may or may not happen in regards to shared hosting but a real life example to a couple of my own sites. I'd like to stick to one shared hosting account for the time being due to financial constraints but obviously I want all my sites ranking high in the serps and not continuously interchanging like the pattern described above. Does anyone have any idea why this might be happening. The mysterious ways in which the big G acts can be bewildering at times.
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  • Profile picture of the author webdevpro
    Hosting multiple sites on same ip in not bad unless the other sites have questionable contents. If this is so then you should move to a dedicated IP (not necessarily dedicated hosting) and it will just cost you around $2/ip extra. Best choice could be separate ip for each separate domain.
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  • Profile picture of the author azanshah
    I believe in one thought that SE looks for the URL and index the pages and doesn't care about IP because hundred of websites run on the shared hosting. But what if you have two different domain/sites on the same hosting with same niche? Would it be clear indication to google that you are doing this just for $$$ and in this case google may disable your adsense account.
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    • Profile picture of the author Buz72
      I'm a relative newbie here myself, and have been wondering the same thing.

      Anecdotally, here is what I have been experiencing. I am using a Shared Hosting plan with HostGator and have 29 different websites on the same 'Unlimited Plan.' A couple of websites are for local businesses (which happen to be owned by relatives - hearing aids and handyman - fairly innocuous), several are product review sites which point to money sites (hosted on a separate HostNine Shared Hosting account).

      There are also a dozen Flash Games websites (specifically themed to a genre - so there is no overlap in terms of content.) Only one of these Flash Games sites uses a purchased template/script/theme. The rest are custom coded (hired out) and unique. Most of the SEO has also been outsourced and the sites are not interlinked on the same shared hosting account.

      Even with equal amounts of SEO (onpage, blog posting, backlink building, social bookmarking, rss syndication, article writing, press releases, video promotion) only one of the twelve sites seems to respond to any of these efforts. Getting about 500 uniques a day to the Top performing Flash Game Site (I know - pretty miserable) and the rest are lucky to see 5 uniques. Now the specifc flash game niche/theme/genre probably has something to do with it, as does competition and keyword difficulty - but it's a pretty stark contrast in my opinion. Certainly we use a CDN for content delivery as we want the users to have the best experience - and each site has it's own cdn zone unique to itself, but I can't help but think that part of our poor results in the SERPs for many of these sites is a result of being on the same IP. All of these sites were rolled out incrementally, over the last 18 months, the most recent back in November. And yes, our #1 Flash Game site was the first site deployed on this shared hosting (which also enjoys #1 ranking for a number of keyword phrases.) We never anticipated that this would be an issue with multiple sites on the same shared hosting, but certainly that is what I'm suspecting. The other 11 flash game sites are barely moving up in the SERPS - they are moving, but very very very slowly.

      Clearly, we'll be moving/migrating our other Flash Game sites to different IPs or perhaps simply change to Reseller Hosting or VPS - but $$$ is an issue too. Just not quite generating the revenue yet.

      Does anyone else have similar experiences with multiple types of same kind of website on Shared Hosting?

      I'll do the migration and see what happens. Might be a couple of weeks (or months) to see results (if any) but I'll come back and post my results.
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      • Profile picture of the author NOSLEEPATALL
        This is a thread that I needed to read as I have a Wedsite that was #1 or #2 on google when I did a search. Basically it's a page showing all my video's from my Youtube page so I could run more Adsense on.

        However then I put on a Subdomain and in doing so I screwed up my Wordpress and only the error would show up on the page. I got it fixed and then doing my backup I screwed it up again. So now that it is back up and running yet again I want to just go to a separate account so no matter what I do it will not affect me first account again.

        Plus I will have an A B comparison when I do things hopefully?
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      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Originally Posted by Buz72 View Post

        I'm a relative newbie here myself, and have been wondering the same thing.

        Anecdotally, here is what I have been experiencing. I am using a Shared Hosting plan with HostGator and have 29 different websites on the same 'Unlimited Plan.' A couple of websites are for local businesses (which happen to be owned by relatives - hearing aids and handyman - fairly innocuous), several are product review sites which point to money sites (hosted on a separate HostNine Shared Hosting account).

        There are also a dozen Flash Games websites (specifically themed to a genre - so there is no overlap in terms of content.) Only one of these Flash Games sites uses a purchased template/script/theme. The rest are custom coded (hired out) and unique. Most of the SEO has also been outsourced and the sites are not interlinked on the same shared hosting account.

        Even with equal amounts of SEO (onpage, blog posting, backlink building, social bookmarking, rss syndication, article writing, press releases, video promotion) only one of the twelve sites seems to respond to any of these efforts. Getting about 500 uniques a day to the Top performing Flash Game Site (I know - pretty miserable) and the rest are lucky to see 5 uniques. Now the specifc flash game niche/theme/genre probably has something to do with it, as does competition and keyword difficulty - but it's a pretty stark contrast in my opinion. Certainly we use a CDN for content delivery as we want the users to have the best experience - and each site has it's own cdn zone unique to itself, but I can't help but think that part of our poor results in the SERPs for many of these sites is a result of being on the same IP. All of these sites were rolled out incrementally, over the last 18 months, the most recent back in November. And yes, our #1 Flash Game site was the first site deployed on this shared hosting (which also enjoys #1 ranking for a number of keyword phrases.) We never anticipated that this would be an issue with multiple sites on the same shared hosting, but certainly that is what I'm suspecting. The other 11 flash game sites are barely moving up in the SERPS - they are moving, but very very very slowly.

        Clearly, we'll be moving/migrating our other Flash Game sites to different IPs or perhaps simply change to Reseller Hosting or VPS - but $$$ is an issue too. Just not quite generating the revenue yet.

        Does anyone else have similar experiences with multiple types of same kind of website on Shared Hosting?

        I'll do the migration and see what happens. Might be a couple of weeks (or months) to see results (if any) but I'll come back and post my results.
        Hi Buz72,

        Don't waste your time or money.

        Whatever your issue is, it has absolutely nothing to do with having a common IP address. Why would you even think that?

        Don't buy into the misinformation that is designed to part you of your hard earned money for no true benefit.
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  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi Bulldozer,

    You want a definitive answer?

    Opinion #1 is definitely false.

    Opinion # 2 is definitely accurate.

    There are many examples of highly authoritative networks that share the same IP address, complete with extensive interlinking. Those websites have tens of thousands of #1 SERP rankings.
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  • Profile picture of the author Simin
    Go buy reseller hosting. And you can add different IP's to each website. Just add $1 for each IP's
    Or go register with SEOHosting. Different c-class IP's. Buy it's more expensive than reseller hosting.
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  • Profile picture of the author BlackMetal
    It only matters for your link profile. I have many sites on the one IP, all with page 1 rankings...
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  • Profile picture of the author mattyprimmer
    I would like to know what you guys think the best option is.

    Say you host with HostGator you might want to stay with them for your additional sites, but should you go with adding an additional IP to each domain you add? (if you're cross linking.) Or should you register additional accounts and hope it's on a different IP/server?

    I know that Google discounts links from sites on the same IP (for search results not Pagerank.) I know this because I have a popular website that we linked out from when we launched our new site and it made the new site a PR3 within a month of being started (with no other incomming links), but does not seem to matter in terms of actually moving up in the serps. While we have partner sites in the past on different IP's that adding links to made a significant change in their search rankings.

    I think this proves it. What's the best solution though? a) New hosting account? b) Adding dedicated IP? or c) finding a completely different host for additional websites?

    Does anyone have any real experience with this?
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  • Profile picture of the author jaffacake2000
    unless you have back links with sites with a high PR ranking status then theres little much difference interlinking sites with the same or low PR status so go ahead and put all your websites on the same host.
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