Two of my sites, one 10 months and one 3 years old don't even rank for their name or other really minor search terms in Google, whereas they have fine/great/awesome rankings in other SEs. I have been trying to find what's wrong for quite a while, to no avail. If anything, my main site has been getting gradually worse Google rankings in the time period Feb 05 - Jul 05. Both sites are hosted in similar IPs, with the first three blocks the same. I've heard that it's possible for Google to penalize IPs. Is it true? Then, would getting a new unique IP for each one of the sites help in any way? I am willing to try, but not without a good reason because there are setup fees and the like to pay, never mind about downtime. Also, could it be that the domains and not the IPs are penalized?(in which case, I think there's little I can do?) Thanks for your help!
No they don't, read this: http://www.mostpopularsites.net/MPS...ig_Silverstein_Answers_Your_Google_Questions/
Google doesn't penalize IP's to prevent penalizing shared hosting sites. Google will soon, if not already, penalize people who register many domain names that it finds to be spammy.