Your HOST can EFFECT your ENGINE RANK

**WandaCox** · 06-20-2002, 12:56 AM

Where You Host Your Site May Effect Your Ranking

Search Engine Submission and Optimization Tips for Top Search Engine Placement

A growing number of web hosting firms set up multiple domains on the same IP address -- this is known as shared or virtual hosting. It may have a extremely deleterious effect on your site's search engine placement.

There are a few reasons this is bad. The main reason that concerns us is the chance of having your site blocked by a search engine. The reason is simple. If you are sharing an IP number with 30 to 50 other web sites, you are trusting them not to over submit or spam the search engine. If a search engines blocks an IP number all the sites that are sharing that IP number are blocked. If you have your own unique IP number, you do not have this problem.

One incredulous bit of information is that when you discover shared hosting and bring it to the attention of the hosting firm, they will claim that is has nothing to do with search engine placement. They will usually say that they have lots of sites with top placement. Keep in mind that the hosting firm is saving money by using shared or virtual hosting.

It is well worth the money to pay more for hosting with a unique IP number then to host at a discounted and have to worry about your search engine placement.

Now that you know your web site should have its own IP number, you should also know that you should be able to get to your web site by your domain name or the IP number. The IP number for this web site is 64.70.225.182 If you copy and paste that into your browser you will find you are at the home page of this site.

We have set up a place where you may enter your domain name and find out what IP number your site resolves to. The url is:
http://www.allsearchenginesitesubmis...ce.com/nqt.php

When you find the IP number that your site resolves to paste it in your browser and hit enter. If you do not go to your own web site, you are hosting without your own IP number. You need to correct this. Keep in mind your hosting firm system may not be set up to give you an unique IP number.

**TimSchroeder** · 06-20-2002, 01:01 AM

Interesting article. The link does not work?

**WandaCox** · 06-20-2002, 07:58 AM

let's try this link

www.AllSearchEngineSiteSubmissionService.com

maybe that'll work?

**TimSchroeder** · 06-20-2002, 10:53 AM

How do you find this on the site? I cant seem to locate it...

Quote:

We have set up a place where you may enter your domain name and find out what IP number your site resolves to.

**HeidiLynn** · 06-20-2002, 11:13 AM

Yeah my host is like that but I don't worry too much. I strive toward getting more word of mouth traffic and links from other sites than I do the search engines.

**WandaCox** · 06-20-2002, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Chief
How do you find this on the site? I cant seem to locate it...

I got the same problem..

I found that in an email news article..

so posted it here and 'over there'..

and now i've been all over that site.. and can not find the tool they speak of..

hmmm

**Perfecthost** · 04:01 AM

Hello all-

I am not one to disagree with experts in their field, but this is something with which I have had some experience. I have seen this article many times myself. This article was absolutely correct 2 or 3 years ago. I would like to make a few corrections, if I may, as it relates to hosting today. I also posted this to a popular search engine forum.

Quote:

Originally posted by SiteTutor
Where You Host Your Site May Effect Your Ranking

Search Engine Submission and Optimization Tips for Top Search Engine Placement

A growing number of web hosting firms set up multiple domains on the same IP address -- this is known as shared or virtual hosting. It may have a extremely deleterious effect on your site's search engine placement.

There are a few reasons this is bad. The main reason that concerns us is the chance of having your site blocked by a search engine. The reason is simple. If you are sharing an IP number with 30 to 50 other web sites, you are trusting them not to over submit or spam the search engine. If a search engines blocks an IP number all the sites that are sharing that IP number are blocked. If you have your own unique IP number, you do not have this problem.

The question is, "If one site on a shared IP is banned by a search engine, will all the other sites be banned, by association with the same IP?" I have researched and talked to people regarding name-based hosting and the banning of sites from search engines. The search engine in doubt was AltaVista. There were rumors that AltaVista would ban everyone on the IP. The majority of "experts" thought the answer would be, "No, the other sites would not be banned," but there were always some that were not so sure. To find out for sure, I wrote AltaVista and received a reply.

My letter:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am owner of Perfecthost.net, a webhosting company. This is a question about the banning of IP numbers by AltaVista.
In the past, we have assigned unique IP numbers to each of our hosting accounts. Because of a stricter stand on assigning IP numbers by ARIN, we are forced to go the way of most webhosts and use a shared IP.

Some of our clients have expressed concern about sharing an IP. They want to know if one site is banned by AltaVista, will all sites which share the IP be banned also?

I appreciate your advice in this matter.

Thank you,
Lamar Stanfield
http://www.perfecthost.net

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AltaVista's Reply (short and to the point)

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for your question.
If one site is banned by AltaVista, the qualified sites which share the IP will not be banned.
Regards,
AltaVista Spam Support

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notice the word not!

How many times have you ran a search and found sites from geocities, tripod, angelfire, or any of the other "free" hosting companies, listed. Most people do not know, nor care, that these sites are on shared IPs. Not just one, two, tens, hundreds, or even thousands of sites are on the same IP, but TENS of thousands. Yet, these sites are still listed with the search engines.

Quote:

One incredulous bit of information is that when you discover shared hosting and bring it to the attention of the hosting firm, they will claim that is has nothing to do with search engine placement. They will usually say that they have lots of sites with top placement. Keep in mind that the hosting firm is saving money by using shared or virtual hosting.

Not true at all! Here are some excerpts from an email that we sent to all our resellers back in February:

Quote:

ARIN, the organization (similar to ICANN) which controls the distribution of IP numbers has become stingy--to put it nicely. ARIN has been promoting conservation of IP numbers for the past 5 or 6 years, saying that the time would come when they started to run out. According to ARIN, that time has come.

We have been waiting 15 days for IPs to bind to a server. It has never taken that long. Today, after much struggle, they graciously assigned us a measly 30 IPs. We are angry about this, but have no control over it. Some other hosting companies, that we are aquainted with, were straight out refused. Perfecthost has been one of the few companies that still assigned an individual static IP to every account. There were a few others that you may recognize: Pwebtech(Pegasus), HostingMatters, etc. ARIN slammed the brakes on all of us (I'll bet they did not do that to some of the truly giant corporations!).

So what are we to do? We are forced to go the way of all hosting companies and sell "name-based" accounts, assigning IP's only when someone wants their own SSL Certificate. Fortunately, we had already been looking into this. I, personally, have been up for 34 hours straight, testing and gathering information on different aspects of name-based hosting. The only difference is that an IP has to be assigned if someone does not want to use the secure cert that we offer on the server, but wants their own.

How does this affect you? Really, not at all. You set up accounts the same way. Your clients' control panels all work the same way. FTP works the same. FrontPage can even be used before dns propagation.

We were carried kicking-and-screaming over to shared IPs. It is not because we "save money". If ANY hosting company assigns dedicated IPs to every account, they are not in compliance with ARIN. All IPs have to have a justified, documentable use. A dedicated IP is required for only 2 things nowdays:
1) Anonymous FTP. Not that big of a deal, since hardly anyone uses it. Many web hosts have removed the option of anonymous ftp for security reasons and because the website owner is responsible for content others upload to their site. Many, many hosts will deny a request for a dedicated IP based on anonymous FTP.

2) SSL Certificate in your name. Many hosts get around this by offering a shared certificate for use by everyone on a server. If the host is wise, the certificate holder's name will be generic so that everyone may use it. It is perfectly acceptable to request a dedicated IP for this reason..

Quote:

Now that you know your web site should have its own IP number, you should also know that you should be able to get to your web site by your domain name or the IP number. The IP number for this web site is 64.70.225.182 If you copy and paste that into your browser you will find you are at the home page of this site.

Actually, all our clients on a shared IP can get to their sites using that IP. It is in the form of

http://IP.num.ber/~username/

where "username" is the client's assigned username when a hosting account is first set up. This allows our clients to reach their website before dns propagation occurs (It also works after dns propagation.) FTP works great with a shared IP. FrontPage can even be used before dns propagation.

Please, do not take any of what I have said in the wrong light. I mean no offense, but my words are based on my experience

-Lamar.

**TimSchroeder** · 06-21-2002, 06:56 AM

Great insight Lamar! Thanks for posting and clearing things up

**WandaCox** · 06-21-2002, 10:48 AM

Lamar
thankyou for your post. i am NOT a host provider.. but ran across that article posted in another of the many forums i browse.. and so posted it here, for qualified feedback. Glad you step'd up to the plate and shared your opinions.

Okay, another question for you Lamar..

this is the IP our host gave us. 209.126.168.240

Now, my question is.. how do i know if this is a unique IP assigned only to our site, or is it an IP that is shared by many
other sites.

Frankly, I don't mind sharing an IP as long as no porn or FFA choked sites are riding on the same IP #. Please advise.

Thankyou!

**Perfecthost** · 06-21-2002, 12:04 PM

First, I used SamSpade to do a "dig" on your website, SiteTutor.com, to find out what the actual IP# is....also, to make sure I was trying to match up the correct site with the IP. You were told correctly; your A entry is 209.126.168.240.

Now to find out if it is dedicated or shared. As the article above related, if I enter http://209.126.168.240/ into my browser, it should bring up SiteTutor.com, if it is a dedicated IP. No /~username/ is required for a dedicated IP. This means that the IP number is dedicated to the one website and none-other. Otherwise, it will probably bring up some sort of welcome page from apache (or similar) or someone else's website.

So, I typed it in and it did NOT bring up SiteTutor.com. Instead, it opened a generic welcome page for a Cobalt Raq server (I was close). This tells me it is NOT a dedicated IP, but shared.

You have nothing to worry about, as long as your host is diligent in wiping out illegal sites. When the trouble comes is when all sites are banned from a search engine because of the host. If a host gets a bad name (refuses to watch their servers to stop spammers and illegal content) search engines will ban all that web host's servers---this is one reason illegal sites have their own search engines. It takes a lot of blatant disregard for an entire host to be banned. Unfortunately, it does happen.

Hope this helps.

-Lamar