Multiple Domains On Same Server: Bad Idea?

[Planet13]

Hi there, Everyone:

I am thinking of creating a new site. It will have somewhat similar subject matter to my current site (which I intend to keep).

For SEO purposes, Should I host it on the same (shared) server with the same hosting company? Or should it be on a different server / different hosting company altogether?

Or does it not matter?

Again, they would be separate domains, but when hosted together, they would have a shared PLESK admin panel. I had heard that you should try to have different i.p. ranges for different sites you own, and I am assuming that hosting on the same shared server would have a similar i.p. range?!?!?!

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[HuskyPup]

Or does it not matter?

In my experience it does not however I'm pretty sure others may have had problems.

I have about 100 sites running on the same server and 20 or so are all about the same subject and its availability from different global sources. Each site runs under its respective TLD/ccTLD.

Some of the products are identical, just produced by a different manufacturer, therefore the on-page information is mostly very similar however Google, and Bing for that matter, have managed to understand that although they're kind of "duplicates", they are actually unique to that specific site and Google.ccTLD.

I do not try and hide anything and all these sites are interlinked so that users may transfer seemlessly from one country site to another.

[Planet13]

Thank You, HuskyPup:

The sites in question would all be the same top level domain (i.e., .com domain). I wonder if that would have an impact either way...

[internetheaven]

and all these sites are interlinked so that users may transfer seemlessly from one country site to another

I'm one of those that have experienced problems with this. I only interlinked 2 sites (US products vs UK products both unique sites/content/products) and both sites tanked all of a sudden. Can't think of another reason that 2 sites would tank at the same time.

Are both your sites well aged and 10,000+ backlinks each or something? Mine only had 2,000-3,000 per site and were only 3 years old.

[tedster]

If the sites actually launch with the interlinking in place, I haven't seen a problem - but I have seen problems when extensive interlinking is added later on.

The idea of separate IP addresses seemed to start with people trying to hide the common domain ownership for various reasons. I've run into no issues at all by making the relationship completely transparent - sharing a WebmasterTools account and so on.

I work with several groups of sites that share the exact same IP, and they interlink for the user's convenience. But don't lean on this kind of interlinking to improve rankings. It usually takes editorial links from 3rd party sites to do that.

[Yellow_Sun]

Planet13,

Looks like you are getting great advice. My experience is we have not had any trouble having multiple sites on the same server including any SEO issues. We have several sites that are fairly similar on the same server and two of them have the same domain, one is a .com and the other .net. We have had no SEO issues with these two sites and they both rank very well for competitive keywords.

Again, this is just my experience but you should be good to go either way.