Two Sites With the Same IP Address Are Confused

A different type of canonical page problem.

[jonrichd]

My client got an email from another site owner today claiming that my client's site showed up #1 in Google for the name of the other site owner. I checked, that that is indeed the case.

I couldn't find any case of linking or 302 redirects that might confuse the bot. These two sites aren't on the same theme, except if one site was about horses and the other zebras, and they are both animals, if you see my analogy.

However, they are both on the same IP address through a popular hosting company.

I submitted an explanation of the problem to google.com/support with the subject line of 'canonicalpage'; I dont' know if that will still work, but we'll see.

Has anyone else had a similar problem, and if so, what did you do? Is there a better way to notify Google?

[ThomasB]

Did you check the caches and the urls mentioned in the cache? It might have also been a server problem at your hosting company that was temporarily caused by a mis-configuration. For how long does the problem exist?

[lammert]

I had this type of problem about six years ago with a site of a customer. Happened to be a configuration problem at the hosting company.

Type in your browser the shared IP address that both sites are using. There should be no page, or some default page of your hosting company. In our case my customers site was shown. If the site of your client is popping up it is probably a configuration problem.

[jonrichd]

Typing in the IP address in the browser results in a blank page, so that's probably not the issue.

In Google, the page title, snippet and cache are that of my client's site, while the domain name is that of the other site. There is also an indented second result listing, which is actually from the proper site, not my client's. Checking today, The cache date is 7/15, while the indented result is cached 7/24.

No response from Google yet.

[Jane_Doe]

There have been reports here of that happening from time to time. SOmetimes it occurs when someone changes to a new host and remnants of the old site at the same address get merged with the new site.

Do the sites each have their own unique domain names or are they using subdirectories? In the past, I've also seen Google combine two sites where two sites both used different subdirectories and but were on the same topic, like two different AOL users both writing about horses on their personal web space getting their sites merged in the serps.

In my case when the other site would get more links then my site would either not be in their SERPs or would show up as an indented listing after theirs. The longterm solution for me was to get my own domain name on a separate host. The short term solution was to get more one way authority links to my site so it showed up first in the serps.

As suggested, uou may also want to ask at the hosting company if they have been moving things around behind the scenes lately. It could be a technical issue at their end.

Perhaps your client would also benefit from paying extra to get a unique IP address with the same host or simply consider changing hosts.

[theBear]

jonrichd,

You have mail.

Google has sites on that IP address all messed up, left and right hands, head, and feet, are crossed.

YAGB.

What a mess.

[jonrichd]

This has become a real mess. Here's what I know now. Four sites share the same IP address.

Site B's home page has site A's home page in Google's cache.
Site A's home page has site C's home page in Google's cache.
Site D's contact page has site A's contact page in Google's cache.

I don't see any other misappropriated pages doing a site: command for sites A B or D. Site C is a store with more than 30,000 pages that I didn't check, obviously.

It looks like it might be time to order that dedicated IP address...