What exactly is the problem with hosting multiple sites on the same ip? At the moment I have about 7 websites on my server box which I'm paying a pretty hefty buck for. What exactly is the problem of doing this? Will my sites be penalized? I'm looking to start up 2 or 3 more sites this month and I wanted to get this sorted out before I got them setup. Thanks in advance!
There is no problem with it. If you were on a shared hosting account, there would be hundreds or thousands of other websites on the same server as yours. The problem comes up if you interlink the websites.... If your site A is linking to your site B and both A and B are on the same server and resolve to the same IP, that link will likely be devalued. Now that is tough to prove, but it seems likely doesn't it? Why would a search engine give the same credit to your internal link as it would to a link from a completely separate site? Rather than paying for one big box, you might think about paying for multiple smaller accounts with many different hosts... if you think that sort of link devaluation might occur....... could just be a tinfoil hat theory, but probably not.....
There is no problem with hosting on the same IP provided that you are running 100% White Hat. Like TheHoff said, don't crosslink sites on the same IP especially of they are not related.
another issue is that Google will only grab a certain amount of data from a given IP. You are not likely to run into a problem with that though. The real issue is cross linking
All above points are true and if you get cauht doing any blackhat stuff, it is mroe likely that all your sits will get banned.
thanks for the info! I think I'll look into picking up another reseller account just for good practice
So, the links get devauled... aren't you just back at par then? What if you are on a large server and you have inbound links from other sites on the same server?
This is all just theory; I can't say they are devalued fully or devauled halfway or even devalued at all. However it makes sense to me that if I'm going to have a dozen different websites and I want them to appear as separate entities that I would host them on different servers in a dozen different datacenters. It only costs $5 to $10 a month to get another shared hosting account with a new provider; people pay that much per month for a piddly PR3/4 link. If you control 12 different hosting accounts you have more linking power of your own to play with.
Cross linking to your own sites with the same host can result in the links being ignored or devalued. I have experienced this and it is also mentioned in the google patent (no one but google knows what is currently being used). The chances of another unrelated site that links to you on the same server is very, very small. Google also has the ability to check the registrar information so links from the same IP may trigger a flag to check to see if they are owned by the same person. Hosting is so inexpensive that I would get another host if you plan on cross linking your own sites and are worried about the links not being counted.
Its quite well understood inter-linking on same IPs results to devaludation however, does multiple websites hosted on same IP Address effect indexing as well ? Do Serps index properly on same IP ?
Well of course it shouldn't affect indexing.... shared accounts have thousands of sites on the same IP. The majority of all websites are on shared accounts.