Hosting Addon Domains: effect on Search Engine ranking

are addon domains ranked differently than separate domains?

[adla111]

Hello, I wonder if anyone has an opinions on the following...

We operate 7 websites which provide provide the same service, packaged slightly differently, to 7 different niche markets.

Will how we setup the hosting for these websites have any effect on the ranking we obtain in the search engines? Specifically, I wonder if there would be any danger (the fear being we might lose ranking) in having the websites all operating as Addon Domains (rather than setting up separate and distinct hosting accounts for each website)?

I'm very interested and grateful for anyone's comments.
Thanks.

[Ahurley]

In general I think you are better off using a standalone or "dedicated" IP for a site, but if you employ other good techniques you can certainly gain very good rank without.

I would be very surprised if your hosting company does not offer multiple domain hosting. Many of these plans I have seen include a number of dedicated IPs in the plan.

There are numerous companies that offer these plans from $25-$50/month.

That may be an easy solution.

[adla111]

Hi...yes, it does offer "multiple domain hosting"...as far as I understand, that is what "addon domains" are.

I'm not sure if they offer dedicated ip. So, on the assumption we set up the websites using multiple domain hosting, but DON'T use dedicated ips for each, you belief there would not be any particular danger that the search engines would use such a hosting setup to demote our websites?

[tbear]

<thinking out loud>
There may be an issue if you cross link all of your sites
</thinking out loud>

[Ahurley]

I have read on some forums and in a couple of books that using a dedicated IP for a domain is preferred, I certainly do not believe it should be your priority though. There are many other aspects to SEO that far outweigh this issue. I would say focus on all your other efforts and when your site increases in SE visiblity you can think about it then.

Many hosting providers that offer specialized services for e-commerce or whatever don't even offer dedicated IPs. They use shared resources such as SSL and IPs. I am certainly no expert, but this issue is really not one that is stressed as being core to any good SEO campaign.

[IppTak]

I was wondering the same thing about the Addon domains and the benefits of having dedicated IPs. Do they really affect your SE ranking? I have read these posts with, "hmm" but always accepted...but now I am having doubts again.

Afterall, don't the spiders "surf" and "crawl" by URL, going to sites like "http://www.widget.com/index.html"? For that reason, I just do not see why one's hosting environment affects anything. Am I missing something here?

[adla111]

Thanks, Ahurley and others for your thoughts. They're quite helpful.

@IppTak
I've now heard an opinion (which makes sense to me) that addon domains could cause a slight problem with search engine ranking if they allow a webpage to be accessed through more than one url (for example, directly at "addon.com" and indirectly with the addon as a subdirectory of the main domain).

Thus if a search engine spider finds the same content at two url's, it might penalize you for duplication. Or, what would be worse, it might delete one of the copies. And it it deletes the "addon.com" copy (the one where all human visitors would find you at) you'll be in trouble.

The work around to this would be to set up the main domain's robot.txt file not to allow spiders to go visit the subdirectory.

[IppTak]

adla111,
That opinion is rather a good one. Most convincing one I heard...but, as a skeptic, I can think these:

1) If I don't have any links from the main site (or anywhere for that matter) to the add-on subdirectories, theoretically the bots should not be able to find those folders, correct? Hence SE should not find those copies there... theoretically, of course.

2) My ISP has indicated that I can forward any requests to the subfolders to go to the addon domain name. (i.e. www.widget.com/addon/ to www.addon.com) I am not sure how it's accomplished, but I may take a look. This may also help prevent the bot from indexing those addon directories.

Either way, I may start looking for a new hosting for my addon domain. Since no one knows the exact SEO rule, we can't take any risks, right?

Thanks for the response

[adla111]

"If I don't have any links from the main site (or anywhere for that matter) to the add-on subdirectories, theoretically the bots should not be able to find those folders, correct? Hence SE should not find those copies there... theoretically, of course."

From what I was told, yes, you are correct in theory.
But still it's best to take some proactive steps (as you seem to be doing) to prevent it from happening "in practise".