IP canonization

[MilanB.]

Hi,

I need your opinions about IP canonization.

Site www.peoplemaps.com is on 78.136.30.112 IP.

Now we redirect that IP to the main page (because of possible duplicate content).

But, we have more sites on the same IP address. How can that affect on their SEO?

Before redirecting, when we visit that IP address, the browser showed mainpage of www.peoplemaps.com, not any other site.

Thanks,

Milan

edit: We have used 301 redirect.

[MilanB.]

Thanks...Now is a bit clearer. Not all, but OK...Thanks again

[Highland]

Are you asking how virtual hosting works or why SEOMOZ didn't report it as duplicate?

When you connect via IP, there's no vhost to use so it picked yours as the default. This wouldn't affect any other site because only one can be served up for the IP directly. SEOMOZ wouldn't necessarily report this as duplicate unless you had backlinks to your IP.

[MilanB.]

Thanks for answer..Yes, we can navigate to other sites on same IP.

But is little strange...For that sites, software hasn't report (and before 301 redirect) that they have IP canonization issues. And if they are on same IP, how is that possible?

[Highland]

It shouldn't affect them at all. All web servers (and thus search engines) load sites based on the domain you're accessing, not the IP. If you can still navigate to their site there's nothing to worry about. I would also say you did the right thing with the 301.