SEO - Multiple Domains On One Hosting Account?

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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.
#search engine optimization #account #domains #hosting #multiple #seo
  • 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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    • 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?
  • 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.
  • ^ 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.
  • 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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    • 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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  • no IP is assigned to Server not to single account on that Server. So all domains on that computer have same IP

    it depends, you culd heve 2nd account on different server than 1st
  • 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.
  • 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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    • 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 . The web sites in question are highlighted in red below.

      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.
      • [1] reply
  • ^^^ 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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  • 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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  • 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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    • 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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  • 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.
  • 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.
    • [1] reply
    • 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.
      • [2] replies
  • 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.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • 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.
  • It only matters for your link profile. I have many sites on the one IP, all with page 1 rankings...
  • 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?
  • 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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    SEO - Multiple Domains On One Hosting Account?

    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)?