C Class IP Hosting

I'm not sure if you understand what a Class C IP is, so let me clarify:

Class C definition can be found here: Internet Protocol - IP

The definition you are probably thinking of is the SEO definition, which basically goes like this:

AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD

A class C means the CCC bit of the IP is different. This definition is WRONG. The true definition of a Class C means it is in the range of 192.0.1.1 to 223.255.254.254.


Being on a "unique IP" (the proper term here is Dedicated IP), means your site is the only one that has that IP addresses, whereas most websites are on a shared IP address.

Will it help you ranking? No, not at all.

This whole class C ip thing is for your BACKLINKS, not your own site. The idea here is that Google wants your site to get links from relevant sites but from a variety of IPs. It doesn't matter if your own site is on a shared or dedicate IP, what matters is that you don't get 500 links from a single IP address with no links from anywhere else.

Google will not penalize you for being on a shared IP, nor will they give you a ranking bonus for being on a dedicated IP.

Furthermore, almost every host requires justification for giving you a dedicate IP address (there is a shortage of IPs until IPv6 is rolled out). And most hosts will tell you to find a different hosting company if you are doing it for SEO purposes, very few off the "SEO hosting" option.

The *only* advantage you might get from being on a dedicated IP is that you can setup a RDNS record, but I seriously doubt Google takes those into consideration as they are predominately for email/spam filtering.

That's incorrect. If you are on a shared IP and it's getting a lot of hacking attempts or anything, you need to ask your web host to move you to a different shared IP.

Upgrading to a VPS isn't to avoid hackers, they can get you there just as easily. A VPS is a power hosting solution for websites that get a lot of traffic and are causing too much load on a shared server (i.e. if you have a website getting 500+ uniques/day, you should not be on a shared hosting plan).

If the IPs of your hosting company are repeatedly under attack or abuse, you need to switch hosting companies. If it happens once in a while it's usually not a big deal (everybody gets hit by them).

The primary reasons to get a dedicated IP are:

1) Private Nameservers - some people prefer using private nameservers/DNS.

2) SSL Certificates - unless you are using a shared SSL certificate, a normal SSL requires your site to be on a dedicated IP address. Most merchant accounts and gateways also require your site to be on a dedicated IP to process the credit card transactions.

I think this is a rather extreme case. I don't think Google will penalize an IP normally, they usually go after the specific domains that are causing problems.


No it won't. Backlinks from different Class C's do.

BINGO.

BINGO.

Hoping someone can clarify something for me. For each website that I am going to throw onto a class c IP, I actually need 3 IP addresses - 1 for the website and 2 for the NS. Is this correct? If so, if I have 5 domains that I need on different class c IP's, then I need to buy a package of 15 class C ip's?

WRONG!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe after Christian went and gave you that CORRECT meaning of the class systems that you go and say that.

I've had to post how this works in this forum many times over the years because people still use all the wrong terminology. It's fine if you're using the wrong terms when explaining this stuff to yourself - but please don't try and tell others about it in the same way.

Let's cut through the fat of this stuff.

Most of the terminology being used here is OUT OF DATE - by a long time.

(around 1993 CIDR was introduced and changed the way IP addressing worked).

Technically - what Christian said was correct based on the old 'classfull' IP addressing method which is what you all seem to still be talking about - the class of an IP address was defined by the value of the first octet. Because humans prefer base 10 (decimal) this is usually expressed as a decimal number - i.e 192-223 made it a Class C address.

0-127 = class A
128-191 = class B
192-223 = class C

So whether it was A, B or C - just meant that first digit was different.

So the IP would look like (as Christian already said) AAA.xxx.xxx.xxx, or BBB.xxx.xxx.xxx or CCC.xxx.xxx.xxx

At the time that seemed like it would be enough IP addresses, but then they realised that they also had to factor in that some companies might have 3 networks all with 10,000 computers, while other companies had 1000 networks, all with 50 computers on them, so they used the SUBNET MASK along with the IP address to draw a line for where the numbers in the IP were describing a network or a particular computer.

The subnet mask is the thing you all keep using to talk about classes - which is why there's confusion.

The subnet mask is much simpler it's just a bunch of 1's followed by a bunch of 0's.

where the 1's stop and the zero's start is where the boundary between network and PC's happens.

So 11111111111111111111111100000000 expressed in decimal would be 255.255.255.0

THIS is what you're all talking about when you say class C.

That is because the DEFAULT SUBNET MASK applied by a computer when you make the first number in your IP address be 192-223 is that.

This is just the default value - it doesn't mean that it's what you have to use, and in fact most people do not use that.

If you see 255 in the subnet mask it just means that all of that octet was 1's - which means all of that number is referring to networks and not devices/pcs.

So getting back to the OPs question - The question doesn't actually make sense.

But using the common old-school and misinterpreted meaning that he's clearly using.........

The question still doesn't make sense.

"I've been wondering If placing my website on a C Class IP will help improve ranking?"

The class of your IP is irrelevant to search engines!!!!!

So let's assume that what you actually mean is that you're on a shared host and sharing the same IP address as other customers of that host - would moving to a different host which gave you an IP of your own (again the 'class' part is meaningless and irrelevant).

This is where the comments from some people about shared hosting are coming from - unless you're on a host that has spammers then it's irrelevant. If that host has some blacklisted IPs and you're on one of them - then yes moving would remove any potential impact.

When it comes to links - No - it doesn't make any difference. IP addresses have moved on so much that Google is not stupid enough to think that because you have an IP address which is in a network different to where your link comes from then it's somehow more valuable.

If you think about it - all those people on shared hosting sharing IPs across thousands of websites would have to be really careful if Google actually gave a crap about it.

Unless you're doing something weird - no-one cares what your IP is.

Will you see hosting companies telling you to pay more for a unique IP? Sure - if people will pay for it - they'll charge for it.

Did it matter in the past? Yes for a while.

Does it matter now? For most people - no.

This is a classic IM myth that many people waste a lot of time on and many others make a lot of money from - much like the whole ".edu links are more valuable" myth.

Please explain why you say this - it doesn't make any sense.

lol Imagine how I feel hearing the term SEO it wasn't called that back in my day. Also, there was no such thing as backlinks or blogs.