Single IP on shared hosting

Does getting a unique IP address for your site on a shared hosting box help

[blunt]

I know there have been loads of posts everywhere about static versus dynamic IP but this is not what my question is about..

I am hosting a couple of my sites on a shared hosting machine, now when I go to do a whois information on the site I get the following information:

Reverse IP: 516 other sites hosted on this server

If I apply for a fixed IP address for my website, or a fixed IP to share amongst 3 of them will this make whois / search engines think something like

2 other sites hosted on this server

?

Does it help for search engine optimization? Are there any main advantages for this?

Thanks

[lammert]

Having your own IP doesn't help for SEO per se. Matt Cutts has addressed this issue in one of his video messages some weeks ago. But it is helpful if some of the other sites on the shared IP are engaged in spamming and the IP address is added to a blocklist.