Hi All, I have a set of domains which have a high PR (anywhere between 4 and 7). Currently they are with all my other domains and point at a generic PPC site with search 'links'. I'm slowly building out individual domains into content based sites with PPC advertising. However, i'd like to utilise some of the high PR domains to SEO my content sites, most of which are PR0. Bearing in mind a lack of specific content for my high PR domains, how would I go about this? Is it best just to put up a page with some random content and link to my content sites from there, or is there a more elegant solution? Also , all these domains are based on the same server - the IP addresses differ only by one digit. Will this have an effect? Any input appreciated, Jamie
The "idea" behind the Google PR is that a link from one site to another is a vote for it. Voting for your own site is ignored or discounted by google when they are on the same class C IP (different IP with the same host doesn't matter) since it looks like you are just voting for yourself, so you would want to have the domains with a different host and then link to them. PR should pass from host "A" to host "B' - Google also has the ability to see who owns a domain and in the future could discount or ignore a link from one site to another (for passing PR) regardless of where they are hosted, if ownership of the domains is the same - but I've seen no evidence that they are currently doing this as long as the sites are on different class C ips. PR is divided among the number of outgoing links on a page, so if you link to two sites instead of just one, the amount of PR passing is going to be split two ways, instead of one.
In my experience you can safely make a small number of links between sites on the same Class C IP. I do it all the time and the PR passes and in terms of getting the bots interested and the new sites indexed it works just fine. I wouldn't go overboard, but a single link from the homepage of your PR7 site should be enough.
Interesting, because I tested two domains I have - same host, different IP's, same Class C IP. I gave a PR5 link to a test page (with content) on the other domain that had no other incoming links (because it was a test) and 14 months later, it still has no PR increase. The same test to a page with another host passed PR on the next update. Are you sure it is passing PR (i.e. no other external links that could be giving the page PR?)
I have heard mixed reports of 'same ip' PR issues. If I were Google, I would be careful with identifying people just by IP - a lot, in fact, all for budget packages, ISP's use shared servers for hosting websites. Look at Fasthosts, they seem to cram about 500 websites onto each server! Perhaps they just treat links from same / simillar IP as being worth less than those on a different subnet?
On a site with multiple incoming links, it's hard to tell is a particular link is passing PR or exactly how much. That why I used domains that are used for nameservers only to test it. The google patent talks about the ability to check registar information to determine ownership, so perhaps a link from the same IP flags it to check to see if they are owned by the same person? Still, the chances of having a "natural" link from two unrelated owners sharing the same IP have to be very, very small.
Well, I guess I can't be 100% sure that PR passed becasue I don't really watch PR all that closely and I can't think of a time that I kept a site up with no other links other than from sites on the same class C AND where I paid attention to the PR bar on the new site. For 100% certainty I can say that links from the same class C get the bots going and the indexing happening. I would have a really, really hard time believing visible PR flow is blocked between sites on same class C. That would just seem to interfere so much with legitimate linking.
It certainly works for getting indexed. I'm talking about PR from sites on the same Class C, with the the SAME ownership record in the registar. I'm sure most of those types of links would not be considered "legitimate" in the eyes of google. An owner of one site "voting" for another site they own seems to go against the intent of what google tried to accomplish with its PageRank. I noticed it because I have two similar sites - one is for retail, one is for wholesale on one particular product on the site (less than 1% overlap). I consider it to be a "legitimate" reason to link the two, but noticed there was no PR passing. I have hosting accounts where I can have unlimted domains (and separate IP's)- but use 5 different hosts because I believe google discounts or ignores cross linking - at least in certain situations. Ignoring the additional cost, it is a hassle to do it this way - I would really prefer to have only two. If google wants to continue their PageRank system, they are going to have to refine their system as right now, there is so much importance on backlinks, that you have to have them to get ranked well for competetive terms. We already know that one-way links are better than reciprocal links - so google has some system in place that checks this. The google patent talks about checking the registar information for the same owner - and while they aren't doing this on all domains, the same Class C or IP may trigger this check. We know they are already checking registar information for domain creation date - and that they cross check ownership for changes on older domain names that transfer ownership. I personally got put in the sandbox on an undeveloped domain I had owned since 1999 right after I changed the registar information to a business name and address. They could also use the google API in some type of filter to try and determine ownership. They could use Adsense ID's. They could use the Google Sitemaps. No matter how much they refine their algorithm, it's never going to be perfect. There will always be sites that get away with using "black hat seo" and conforming sites that unfairly get caught in an automated filter.