Hi, I have 3 sites, which are on the same server and have the same IP. They also access the same database and have very similar content. One of the sites is the main company site, and the others are supposed to look like private sites, to get more clients. Anyway, Google doesn't seem to like these micro sites. Is it possible that Google knows that these are micro sites, as they have the same IP and very similar content? If so, is there are way to work around that? Suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.
Google can see that the sites are at the same IP, but that's not the point here, I think. The point is that you have very similar content on all three sites. So google will likely only index one of each article page. In general one would expect the oldest site to be most fully indexed and the others ignored.
Same IP has nothing to do with it. If your content is extremely similar you should change it up a bit.
As long as the sites do not link together and the content is different you shouldn't have a problem. Also make sure your code isn't the same. Google will look at the page structure and see if it is similar. You can also visit CopyScape to see if you have an issue. It's a free way to see if you can find dupes.
I've just started a thread on almost similar topic. I have same IP address for 4 of my websites. They seemed to be loved by Google search mainly because the contents are definitely different from each other. Although I am not sure if I *were* to use 4 different IPs for the 4 websites, whether or not the search results will be better.