inbound-outbound link question

[scorpion]

Does google check IP's when checking incoming and outgoing links?

e.g.

site A links to site B, site B links to site A. Both A and B are distinct sites with their own domain names and content.

However both A and B reside on the same server. Will this be "considered" a different kind of linkage than if A & B resided on separate servers?

[2_much]

Scorpion, this can be a pretty tricky, controversial questison. Some say yes, others no, others say they simply don't count when they're on the same IP.

From my personal experience, the links DO count when they're on the same IP. Will this last? I don't think so.

Personally, I think that at some point Google will set something up that will trigger a manual check and either penalize or not count links from the same Class C. It's safe to assume, however, that it's a good idea to spread your sites out.

[Terry_Plank]

Scorpian, I agree with 2_much. Our experience from having multiple domains is that they do still count. The future? No one knows but Google.

[Dante_Maure]

Here's an excerpt from the Slashdot Interview [interviews.slashdot.org] with Google's Craig Silverstein...

Google handles virtually hosted domains and their links just the same as domains on unique IP addresses. If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you'll never see a difference between the two cases. We do see a small percentage of ISPs every month that misconfigure their virtual hosting, which might account for this persistent misperception--thanks for giving me the chance to dispel a myth!

In combination with other factors that have been flagged by spam filters this could be taken into account, but penalizing across the board would horribly skew their algorithm's effectiveness.