I would like to host multiple websites on a virtual private server. However, these websites should not be connected to each other from a search engines point of view. Could I do this by just using unique IP's for each website, or are there any other links that show that the websites are connected (other than fact that they would all be hosted by the same company)? I am also concerned that the sites would have a similar IP and could be linked to each other because of their "IP neighbourhood". Thanks for any input!
Many different sites are sitting in shared hosting accounts and owned by different individuals. So even though this is a point to consider, it is very tricky to try and establish ownership this way. Some sites use similar google adsense publisher codes to tell if the owner is the same. Hope it helped!
Thanks, tattooholic. As far as I understand search engines consider VPL servers as dedicated servers. I am asking because I want to try different SEO options for each website and do not want one site to get punished in case something goes wrong with the SEO of another.
VPS and dedicated serve has nothing to do with unique IP or different class C ip. It could help you to be able hosting more websites compared to shared hosting and capable for a lot more traffics. However all websites whether they are in dedicated server are under the same ip or may have multiple ip depends on your web hosting company mentioned in the package. Most of those multiple ip are not different class c but only class d. If you linked those websites altogether then they will be easy to identical as a self-promoted.
If you go for IP based hosting for each of the websites on the same VPS then you will be fine! You can have IP's from one and the same C class IP network or from different IP networks.
Thanks again for the input, guys. I will have to check with the host what class level the different IPs would have. What do you mean by "IP based hosting", fcolor?
As far as what I believed, search engines just punished the site based on it's domain name. It is no way looking for co-neighborhood. To be safe, assign each site with dedicated/static IP.
People tend to avoid shared hosting to avoid the risk of being associated with spammy web sites in the same IP range. I do not know how relevant this information can be for the SERP's, but I think it plays a role more or less.
Yes, you got your point there. Regaridng SPAM, it will affect your site (maybe not directly), because some blacklist sites tend to blacklist IP range. Maybe relevant to search engines if other sites on where your site was hosted was spammy. But I think when it comes to punishment of search engines to other sites hosted on your server due to SEO abuse like content duplicates or bruteforce techniques, your site will definitely won't be affected. Like was said, getting static/dedicated IP is best bet.