SEO and a dedicated server

[slideri812]

Hi All,

I’m not sure if I’m in the right topic but here it goes.
We have several clients that we host via managed shared hosting. None or few reside are on the same server and all have unique IP’s. We are working to move all of our client’s sites to our own dedicated server. I have read some threads about cross-linking sites that reside on the same server. Is this going to be an issue for us? What should we be looking for? And is there anything we can do to avoid being penalized by the SE’s?

All of our client’s sites have a link back to us in the footer of every page. Many of our client’s sites rank well on their own. Some do not because of highly competitive terms but they rank well from our portfolio (all of our clients are regional and offer services in a limited area).

So my final question is what should we be doing in terms of cross-linking and IP’s so that the SE don’t look at or see a relation between each site and think “oh, there all on the same server, it must be a spam or black hat trick”? The last thing we want is to slip and loose all of the hard work we have done (many of our cline’s rank well for their top 2 to 4 keywords).

We have enough clients to justify a dedicated server and all of the benefits come with it, we just want to avoid taking a huge hit while consolidating our resources.

Any help on this subject is greatly appreciated; this is totally new ground for me.

[jackit_chick]

Cross linking should be fine just as long as your pages all have to do with the same thing. If they're just a bunch of different websites that really have nothing in common, then I wouldn't recommend it. The spiders only like relative links.

[kservik]

Originally Posted by jackit_chick

Cross linking should be fine just as long as your pages all have to do with the same thing. If they're just a bunch of different websites that really have nothing in common, then I wouldn't recommend it. The spiders only like relative links.

Beeing from same region could be just that - relevant. But it is risky business. I am no expert, but I suspect that I have problems with ranking just because of that.

[cyanide]

My personal opinion, is if you're planning to do heavy cross-linking, then the ip address isn't going to make a difference, google will figure it out.

However, it doesn't sound like you're doing that anyway, (linking between you and your clients)

However, from a protective stand-point, I might be a bit wary of putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak.

I think at the very least, you might consider putting your own website on one machine and clients on another.
a) it would help with the ip address issue
b) if your dedicated ever went off-line because it wasn't secured tight, or any other reason, atleast YOUR site is accessible and clients can still reach you

[jackit_chick]

Relevancy for cross-linking, from what I've researched, pertains to the website's content only. My website, www.jackit.com, has very few outgoing links, and quite a few more incoming links, but we're always very careful about who we ask to link to us. Their whole website has to do with suspension or truck parts that we carry in order for us to think about asking them. Cross-linking seems to be tricky business because the mother of all websearches, google, focuses very much so on that. So becareful!

[freddieb]

I have many sites cross-linked on the same server and it doesn't appear to make any difference. I even have small sites in their own folder(not domains or sub-domains)within a domain that are cross-linked and I see no difference with rankings. The content is the important thing.

[AndrewX]

It's a reasonable concern, although I would tend to agree with the last two posters.

At least that is my experience.

[steve0]

(Depending on how you configure your server..)

Does your provider offer multiple IP's for a dedicated machine?

Grab a few, and spread the domains over them, with your own site having it's own IP.

-steve

[deltatrend]

I always understood that what mattered was the netblock anyway, which means if you are hosting several sites at the same company - even on different machines with different IPs - the SEs know that they are probably associated.

I am this situation, and some of my clients' sites even link to each other. It doesn't seem to generate any penalties, but I can't say that it is positive either.

[TechEvangelist]

The way that sites on the same server are identified is by the Class-C portion of the IP address. The Class-C portion is the first three groups of numbers in the IP address.

Many hosting companies assign a Class-C IP address to a server, which then gives them 256 unique IP addresses (the fourth group of numbers) to assign to individual sites. Usually a few of the IP addresses are reserved for special functions or for shared IP sites.

The bottom line is that you should avoid heavy cross-linking of sites on the same Class-C IP address.

[solohelp]

I have a dedicated server that I use to host my sites and the sites of alot of my web design clients. I'm on my own IP address and the rest of the sites on the server are on a second IP. All those sites have links to me in the footer of each page. Links to different pages on my site with different link text and titles. I DO NOT link back to any of my clients with html links. I use a javascript form with radio buttons for links to sites in my portfolio. I have back links from all of there sites but they have none from mine.

I dont know that it has hurt me in the SEs. I rank #1-#5 for my terms at all the SEs except google, where I move between 15 and 40. Or worse.

Hope that helps.

PS if anybody cares I actually got into dmoz last week. WooHoo!! Maybe that will help my Google rankings.

[slideri812]

Hi all and thanx for the great replies. I'm going to respond to several starting from the top:

jackit_chick wrote:

Cross linking should be fine just as long as your pages all have to do with the same thing. If they're just a bunch of different websites that really have nothing in common, then I wouldn't recommend it.

The thing they all have in common is that they are all located in the same city or tri city area. We use regional keywords in the head, title, keywords and content to help locals find therse local services.

ksevik wrote:

Being from same region could be just that - relevant. But it is risky business. I am no expert, but I suspect that I have problems with ranking just because of that.

Our sites home page has a pr of 5 up from a long-standing 4. We have banked on the region aspect; things have been stable for the past year, no slips as we continue to add clients.

cyanide wrote:

I think at the very least, you might consider putting your own website on one machine and clients on another.

That sounds like a very good idea. It might help maintain the integrity of our client’s content value and pr too.

jackit_chick wrote:

My website, www.jackit.com, has very few outgoing links, and quite a few more incoming links, but we're always very careful about who we ask to link to us.

We follow a similar chain of thought, each client page has a "website created by: dcvistudios.com". Our name is the link. There are hundreds of pages with this link setup pointing back to us. On the other hand, our portfolio uses (against all of my preaching and teaching) an iFrame. Each client portfolio has a separate page grouped together in a portfolio or client folder. The client’s name appears in the main body of the page with a link pointing into our own site. The only link out to our client’s site is in the unique portfolio page which is only viewed in the frame.

freddieb wrote:

I have many sites cross-linked on the same server and it doesn't appear to make any difference. I even have small sites in their own folder(not domains or sub-domains)within a domain that are cross-linked and I see no difference with rankings. The content is the important thing.

This is what we have been hoping but we find no real info to back it up, thanx for the confirmation. I agree, it has to be about the content. But, sometimes the SERP's don't seem to reflect this.

steveo wrote:

Does your provider offer multiple IP's for a dedicated machine?

Yes Steve, our provider supports multiple IP's. We will be using a Dedicated Linux box with Plesk7 as the control panel. Each site is going to continue having a unique IP.

deltatrend wrote:

I always understood that what mattered was the netblock anyway, which means if you are hosting several sites at the same company - even on different machines with different IPs - the SEs know that they are probably associated.

Our server will be located in a server farm. You make a good point. Is it possible to have multiple netblocks on a single server? *note to self:)

I am this situation, and some of my clients' sites even link to each other.

Some of our clients do business with each other (no small wonder as word of mouth advertising gets around) and so some of our clients sites have cross-links. We try to use deep linking when it makes sense for them.

TechEvangelist wrote:

The way that sites on the same server are identified is by the Class-C portion of the IP address. The Class-C portion is the first three groups of numbers in the IP address.

Many hosting companies assign a Class-C IP address to a server, which then gives them 256 unique IP addresses (the fourth group of numbers) to assign to individual sites. Usually a few of the IP addresses are reserved for special functions or for shared IP sites.

Like the previous post, is it possible to have multiple Class-C IP's on the same server? I figured that my provider has a DNS and can dole out IP’S at will, but then again if I knew that much about servers I wouldn't be writing and reading all of this.

SoloHelp:

Thanx. It sounds like you have gone down the path I now am facing. As I mentioned above we do link back to our clients but it is in an insulated manner and it is very limited.

Congrats on DMOZ. Submit it and forget it.

Thank all of you for your input. I'll check this thread again in the morning and continue to read and reply. What a great place, everyone has been very helpful![/b]

[megri]

We already had a experience of it we have many sites when we shifted the server and for some emergency we put all sites in on server on one C-Class we lost the ranking. My advice is to have different C-Class at least for different sites it may be on one dedicated server. It will be preferable if you can host the site on different servers. If you have many sites I will advice to take resellers hosting account on different server with different data center in different cities or region to make good cross-linking. It is definite that you must have relevant cross-linking of web sites or web pages.

[ReviewGolf.com]

What you probably need not a dedicated server but a dedicated IP address, which usually a onetime nominal setup fee as opposed to $$$ of dedicated hosting.

[slideri812]

ReviewGolf.com
What you probably need not a dedicated server but a dedicated IP address, which usually a onetime nominal setup fee as opposed to $$$ of dedicated hosting.

Thanx. Every site already has a dedicated IP address, as does our own site. It has been that way for the past four years. As far as the dedicated server goes we have decided to make the switch because for the same money as 12 shared managed hosting accounts we can have a whole server loaded with PHP, ASP, MySQL, Urchin 6, Pleask7, 80gig HDD, 1000GB of data transfer a month, daily BU and much much more. Heck I can even run CF.

Not to mention the branding of our services such as web based e-mail access, client control panel, reselling hosting and more. The server will hold up to 200 sites (unique IP's). We plan on hosting 100 sites per server max. We already spend more on shared hosting every month than the dedicated will cost.

Our business has grown and it is going to continue to grow. A dedicated server is another way of fixing our hosting overhead for the next 18 to 24 months.

Sure, we make money on each new site, but the real money; the long-term money is in the hosting and related services. Fixing our hosting overhead now is going to help us realize 80%+ profit on hosting instead of 55 - 60%. And as our client base grows the fixed cost is further deferred. A win win situation for us.

FYI we have been reselling hosting for more than three years, it's time to cash in.

Thanx for your input. BTW, nice looking site simple and clean.

[slideri812]

Hi all,

What great responses. Many of them are leading me to questions I had never considered. I checked with my potential provider (same one I use for the shared hosting now) and asked about the Class-C or Netblock (BTW are these two the same?).

I knew I could purchase IP's in blocks. What I found out was that for each block I purchase (8,16 or 32) I can request that they be of a different Class (or netblock).

Couple this with keeping our site completely seperate should address most of our concerns (we hope).

One last item:
In moving to the dedicated server we will loose (according to my provider) our current IP's and will have to reasign new IP's for each site. Any idea how this will affect our clients standings in the SERP's?

Thanx everybody

[cyanide]

Originally Posted by slideri812

In moving to the dedicated server we will loose (according to my provider) our current IP's and will have to reasign new IP's for each site. Any idea how this will affect our clients standings in the SERP's?

Yes, you will have to re-assign ip addresses, but no it won't affect search engine rank.

Tread carefully when moving websites, especially database-driven ones and then assigning new ip addresses... maybe your host will help with that

[cyanide]

ps: I hope you have a secondary physcial drive to backup your client's websites for your brand-new shiny dedicated

[slideri812]

Hi cyanide,

Thanx. Our server will have a second HDD just for BU. And, unlike some providers, I checked, they will assist us moving our sites over. We have been a client of this provider for a few years now and it is part of the unlimited support that comes with the server.

Thanx for the reassurance that changing IP's will not cause a problem with SERP placement.

We do not have any data driven sites (online) at this time. This is one of the reasons we are making this change, so that we can implement CMS across the board without incurring additional charges as is the case with shared hosting (to add MySQL to shared hosting is $15 a month per account x20). Saving on these charges alone will cover the cost of the server.

Thanx cyanide

[slideri812]

P.S.

We expect to begin the 1st of Mach. I will post the highs and lows here as they relate to the topic.

[cyanide]

nice

btw, I dropped you a pm