Does a site need a unique IP to SE well?

[plasma800]

A friend and I are having a small debate.

He says that a site on a virtual shared host works just as well as a site on a unique IP address and I disagree.

If you want good organic SE rankings, do you feel a unique IP is absolutely needed or do you feel a virtual shared IP situation will work?

Thanks!
jh

[jatar_k]

>> do you feel a unique IP is absolutely needed

no I don't feel it is, I have had lots of sites do very well on shared. I doubt they would have done any better on unique.

[Web Footed Newbie]

I agree with jatar K. Hosting multiple sites, I have both unique IP and shared. Search engine ranking, in my opinion, is not effected by this at all.
WFN

[kevinpate]

Based on my own shared hosting experiences, your friend wins the debate hands down.

[topr8]

in my experiece it makes no difference ...

which isn't to say in some circumstances it would - like for instance if you shared an ip with a banned black hat network. (i don't know this - just speculating)

[topr8]

>>He says that a site on a virtual shared host works just as well as a site on a unique IP address

you can have a unique ip on a virtual shared host, but i assume the question was - does it make a difference: shared ip or unique ip

[aaronpaul]

I've seen sites get a small bump after moving to a unique IP, but I have lots of sites with top-3 placements not on unique IPs too. When I've seen a bump from moving, I usually assume the new IP is "cleaner" than the shared one. But, it can get good placements either way.