Why Your Hosting Company and Domain Name is Important to SEO

Why did you choose your hosting company? Was it because the service that the company offered was second-to-none and strong up-time was guaranteed. Perhaps the cost was affordable? Maybe you had no choice in the matter and it was part of your website design package. Whatever your decision was ? if your site is running shared hosting then you may be getting penalized by the Search engines without you even knowing it.

The majority of websites on the Internet share an IP Address. A shared IP can average out at about 400 websites and it only takes one site to penalize all the rest. So, what sort of sites are a target for the Search Engines that they’ll blacklist or devalue that IP address.

• Pornography or Adult content sites
• Spamming Sites
• Fraudulent or Phishing Sites (spoof sites that try to dupe personal details from users)
• Doorway Domains
• Link Farms (These are generally considered bad neighborhoods by the Search Engines)
• Sites that run duplicate content
• Doorway Pages

A great way to check who you share your IP Address with is to enter your web address into this tool: http://www.seologs.com/ip-domains.html which allows you to visually check who is sharing your IP Address.

What are the options to shared IP Addresses? Well you can get your own static IP address which instantly erases the threat of Search Engines blacklisting or devaluing your site through someone else’s activities. Are the costs greater? The cost will be higher but not great. No-one knows for sure if Search Engines prefer a unique IP to one that is shared, however there has been cases when sites release themselves from shared hosting to obtain their own unique IP Address that their rankings improved as well.

Another factor that can also can affect a sites ranking is the domain itself. No I’m not talking about the domain naming convention (almost everyone nowadays tries to cram that golden keyword phrase into their domain name ? I wonder when the Search Engines will change the rules on this one and consider it spamming). But how long you have actually purchased your domain for. Sites that have been purchased for two or more years in advance are saying to the Search Engines ? were in this for the long run and come across more legit than those that purchase for a year in advance.

The reason is that spammers and malicious phishing sites are never around for long and their intention is to make as much money as possible in a very short period of time or in-case they get caught early enough without outlaying much cost. This is why Search Engines such as Google introduced the ?Sandbox? to allow for a period of time for websites to become trustworthy to the Search Engines. Buying your domain for a lengthy period is a statement of intent by you to the Search Engines that your site is reputable and trustworthy.

SEO is like preventative maintenance. Every area should be covered, over and over, to gain you those prized ranking positions and that means including your hosting and domain registration in your checklist. A professional SEO Company ensures that the best model to suit your site is in place to get the best out of your website.

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Is Multiple C Class Web Hosting an SEO Solution?

Website owners are becoming more and more in tune with Search Engine Optimization, and continue to fret over how they’re seen in the eyes of Google and other search engines. More are turning to their Web hosting providers for fresh SEO solutions and answers.

Leading Web hosting firm, Host Gator, decided to tackle this evolving demand by launching SEO Web Hosting and by zeroing in on a growing concept and concern: Multiple C Class Hosting.

To understand this new brand of hosting, one has to look closely at an IP address to spot the C class. The set of the first three numbers is known as the C class. For example, within the IP 209.68.33.140, the C class is 209.68.33. An IP of 209.68.34 ? with the last number different ? is within the same ?class C? range. Websites with similar C classes may be close to each other or may even reside on the same server.

So why has Host Gator decided to focus on this issue for customers? Brent Oxley, President and Founder of Host Gator, explained that SEO experts have long suspected that Google checks for interlinking between websites hosted on the same C class, to uncover relationships and to detect spammers. Google, and likely other search engines, may use this info to penalize websites. They may devalue a site’s search ranking or even ban them from showing up on searches. Google may even penalize sites for merely being linked to such sites.

Except for perhaps core search engine programmers at Google, no one truly knows if this theory is correct. Many other forms of data and WHOIS information is used to pick out spammers, but it is safe to assume that search engines choose to ignore links they do not trust. If sites share the same C classes, they may in fact be labeled as spam.

Oxley told TopHosts that he’s not exactly sure if the theory is completely valid, but knows what his customers want, and he’s reading them loud and clear.

Our customers work hard on their websites. They build up legitimate websites, and wish to link their work on all their sites,? Oxley said. ?They’ve been asking for IPs in different C classes for a long time. We are simply giving them what they want.?

Currently, Oxley says Web hosts may charge high prices for IPs in different C classes, and in many cases, customers are forced to work with multiple hosting providers to fulfill this need. Host Gator’s Multiple C Class Hosting enables customers to select a 100 or more different C classes for sites, for as low as $5 per month per C Class, while having it all integrated into a single control panel.

For over two years, Oxley says they’ve provided the multiple C class service to select customers in a testing manner. Customers cite ?SEO? as the reason for the request, so Host Gator decided to officially launch the new service under the brand ?SEO Web Hosting?. Oxley says it’s a unique initiative, and that only a select few hosting providers could supply the offer.

The reality is that many of our customers wanted at least 50 different C classes to spread their sites across,? Oxley said. ?With 255 IPs per C class, that means over 10,000 IPs. Not a lot of companies have the scalability to achieve this type of offering.?

Host Gator is also promoting other important SEO elements, as part of their new SEO strategy for customers. Stemming from their overall approach, Oxley says search engine spiders are attracted to fast loading websites, so they guarantee ?blazing fast? service and 99.9% uptime. Also, customers with more than 25 sites will get a dedicated account rep to help them manage any issues they may have.

Oxley also hopes their new hosting brand will become a valuable source for those seeking SEO information and help. ?SEOHosting.com will be more than just a commercial website ? it will have articles, tips, and experts to help educate our customers, and others about the evolving trends in SEO,? he said.

Author:

George Di Falco, Contributing Editor TopHosts.Com

George Di Falco is a Contributing Editor for http://www.TopHosts.Com He monitors the Web hosting industry and reports on a variety of technology related news.