IP address for multiple sites

[quark]

On a few occassions, when offering 5 sites we have for link exchange, webmasters have turned me down, based on the fact that they share the same IP address (host). is this a problem? Do the search engines penalize you for this?
thanks
ira

[jeffposaka]

IMO, they will not penalize individual sites in a shared hosting environment that have the same IP address.

But they do not like 5 sites linking together that have the same IP address (http://www.searchengineforums.com/apps/searchengine.forums/action::thread/thread::1082479499/forum::google/) because it seems like a mini-link farm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_farm).

If this on your server, you might want to buy more IP addresses then it becomes a non-issue.

[sitecreations]

But you'll want to be sure the IPs aren't on the same class C range. Otherwise they will STILL look a bit like a link farm (though not as much.)

Here's a snazzy little Class C Range Checker (http://www.webrankinfo.com/english/tools/class-c-checker.php) I found.

[quark]

thank you both for the insight
ira