Google and shared IPs

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Google and shared IPs

Is google spider friendly to sites hosted on shared IPs?

3Mice

8:07 am on Aug 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

Hello,
Our site is currently hosted on an NT platform with a dedicated IP address.
We pay US$ 49 per month to host our site and we were thinking of moving to a lower costing solution of about US$ 29/month with the same company.
We were advised that if we were to migrate to the cheaper hosting solution then we would lose our dedicated IP address and be hosted on a shared environment.
We appear in top search listings in google for competitive keywords relating to Africa travel.
From what I've heard, Google does not rank favourably sites which are hosted on a shared IPs.
Would this mean we might lose our high rankings if we migrate to shared hosting?

Regards,
Gerald

olderscot

9:25 am on Aug 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

You shouldn't listen to everything you hear.

Google couldn't care less whether you have a dedicated or shared IP. Why Should they? All they want to do is find the most relevant pages for their search results.

The only possible problem is if an IP address is shared by lots of spammy sites. But believe me this problem, if it exists at all, only occurs very rarely and wouldn't have a long term effect on your site. All you'd have to is move to another server.

Mike

storevalley

1:00 pm on Aug 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

I broadly agree with olderscot. The shared IP thing is an urban myth ... I run a number of sites that are on shared IPs, and they have plenty of good traffic-bearing positions in Google.

GoogleGuy's comments in this thread may help to ease your worries a little, too ...

[webmasterworld.com...]

The only possible problem is if an IP address is shared by lots of spammy sites

Can't see that this would cause a problem. If you share an IP address with an email spammer this might cause mail to be blocked though.

hazardtomyself

4:16 pm on Aug 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

I transfered my site from one shared IP to another shared IP about 3 months ago and my position was unchanged. I would recommend leaving your site up at the original IP at least a month. It took G Bot between 1-2 weeks to consistently fetch the site at the new IP.