Multiple Domains on 1 IP Address

[Motivators]

We have multiple domains on the same C Block IP Address. Our main site is an eCommerce site, and we have separate domains for each of the following: our company blog (and other niche blogs), forum site, articles site and corporate site. They are all on the same server and hosted by the same web-hosting company.

They all have unique and different content. Speaking strictly from a technical standpoint, could this be hurting us? Can you please make a recommendation for the best practices when it comes to multiple domains like these and having separate or the same IP Addresses?

Thank you!

[Dr-Pete]

Sorry, I'm confused about the setup. Hosts routinely run multiple sites off of shared IPs, but each domain name resolves as itself. Users and search bots should never see that redirection at all and shouldn't be crawling the IPs. This isn't an SEO issue so much as a setup issue. Likewise, any rel=canonical tags on each site would be tied to that site's specific domain name.

[Jade]

Hello Peter,

We have three sites hosted on the same server with the same IP address. For SEO (to avoid duplicate content) reasons we need to redirect the IP address to the site - but there are three different sites. If we use the "rel canonical" code on the websites, these codes will be duplicates too, as the websites are mirrored versions of the sites with IP address, e.g. www.domainname.com/product-page and 23.34.45.99/product-page. What's the best ways to solve these duplicate content issues in this case? Many thanks!

[Dr-Pete]

I think that situation's a bit different - if you aren't interlinking and the sites are very different (your site vs. customer sites), there's no harm in shared hosting. If you share the IP and one site is hit with a severe penalty, there's a small chance of bleedover, but we don't even see that much these days. Now that we're running out of IPv4 addresses, shared IPs are a lot more common (by necessity).

[MikePatch]

I have something similar. I'm with Hostgator, I have a VPS level 5. It comes with 4 IP address's and I have about 15 sites, some mine, some customer sites spread out over the addresses. There is very little interlinking between the sites but I was concerned too. I have read that Add-on sites are bad for SEO, but as long as you arent feature building crappy sites and linking them to your main site, should be fine.

[Dr-Pete]

I think @cgman and @Nakul are both right, to a point. Technically, it's fine. Google doesn't penalize shared IPs (they're fairly common). If you're cross-linking your sites, though, it's very likely Google will devalue those links. That tactic has just been abused too much, and a shared IP is a dead giveaway.

Now, is it worth splitting all these out to gain a little more link-juice? In most cases, probably not. Google knows you own the sites, and may devalue them anyway. Chances are, they've already been devalued a bit. So, I don't think it's worth hours and hours and thousands of dollars to give them all their own homes, in most cases (it is highly situational, though).

The only other potential problem is if one site were penalized - there have been cases where that impacted sites on the same IP, especially cross-linked sites. It's not common, and you may not be at any risk, but it's not unheard of. As @Nakul said, it's a risk calculation.

[NakulGoyal]

I am presuming all those domains are linking to each other, correct ?

Are they regular or nofollow links ? It boils down how much authority you have on your main domain as well as the other domains. If I were you, I will keep the main e-commerce website on one server and everything else including niche blogs etc on a different server. It's not just SEO, but also security issues.

Essentially, to answer your question, it may not be hurting you to have the niche blogs, a forum with user generated content, the articles site and the corporate site on the same IP/server, but it would help you a lot more if they were on a different server, possibly different Class C IPs. So, you will gain from these links being on a different server. Keep in mind, these links are important for you and its good to increase their value by hosting them separately, because these sites are links that your competition can never get linked from. I would also consider doing a nofollow on them, and that's just my thoughts. I prefer lower risk. Again, it depends on what your e-commerce website's link profile is.

[cgman]

There is nothing wrong with having multiple sites / blogs on the same C block IP address. However, if you're trying to use your blogs to link to your products to boost SEO scores then you might want to consider other link building techniques in addition. Building backlinks from sites on same IP is okay, but you'll have greater benefits getting links from sites hosted on other servers.