How cloudflare might affect "rank juice" on numerous domains due to limited IP range?
-
We have implemented quite a few large websites onto cloudflare and have been very happy with our results. Since this has been successful so far, we have been considering putting some other companies on CL as well, but have some concerns due to the structure of their business and related websites.
The companies run multiple networks of technology, review, news, and informational websites. All have good content (Almost all unique to each website) and rankings currently, but if implemented to cloudflare, would be sharing DNS and most likely IP's with eachother. Raising a concern of google reducing their link juice because it would be detected as if it was coming from the same server, such as people used to do for their blog farms.
For example, they might be tasked to write an article on XYZ company's new product. A unique article would be generated for 5-10 websites, all with unique, informative, valid and relevant content to each domain; Including links, be it direct or contextual, to the XYZ product or website URL. To clarify, so there is no confusion...each article is relevant to its website...
technology website- artciel about the engineering of xyz product
business website - How xyz product is affecting the market or stock price
howto website - How the xyz product is properly usedCurrently all sites are on different IP's and servers due to their size, but if routed through cloudflare, will Google simply detect this as duplicate linking efforts or some type of "black hat" effort since its coming from cloudflare?
If yes, is there a way to prevent this while still using CL?
If no, why and how is this different than someone doing this to trick google?Thank you in advance! I look forward to some informative answers.
-
Thank you for some great information! I am reading it over now!
The concern is not necessarily the page rank or da of the actual sites with the content linking to the other site, but that google might reduce or diminish the link juice of the actual links since they would likely detected as originating from the same server.
It might be 5-10 websites, original content...but not really something we can "test and see"
Thank you again!
-
For a small number of sites I would not be concerned, but if you are worried, Try Microsoft Azure you get a unique ip for each website and they are very cheap with a great interface.
-
Response updated
-
Where did you get that information for all sites being on different IP's? I ask because 3 of the sites we are using for some clients all are coming from the same IP or the same c block or range.
A better question might be if there is a way to ensure they are served from different IP's since we cannot risk it.
Side note, I am waiting for a response from CL as well and will post their info if relevant.
thanks!
-
UPDATED/CLARIFICATION: Responding to your comment "Currently all sites are on different IP's and servers due to their size."
Your server IP addresses (A Records) will stay unique/same. The IP is masked by Cloudflare's Anycast using different IP addresses across the world, depending where used can be identical or in similar range. They cache static content with a short expiry time; for non-cached content their servers proxy through requests to the actual server then forward to a user.
See http://www.quora.com/CloudFlare/How-does-CloudFlare-work for a detailed response from CloudFlare's CEO to a similar question.
Now Google "should" first of all understand how Cloudflare works as a CDN just like it does with other similar CDNs and security platforms.
Does Google care about same IPs no, unless there are spammy neighbors using it:
“… there was recently a discussion on a NANOG (North American Network Operators Group) email list about virtual hosting vs. dedicated IP addresses. They were commenting on the misconception that having multiple sites hosted on the same IP address will in some way affect the PageRanks of those sites. There is no PageRank difference whatsoever between these two cases (virtual hosting vs. a dedicated IP).” Cutts Blog
Should Google figure this out and be able to differentiate the Cloudflare masking yes. But has Google been found with incorrectly diagnosing spam yes, with probably less complex issues to Cloudflare. The question may be do you want to take the risk, or partial risk as you can actually use your own DNS and cloudflare (paid version) again hoping assuming Google will understand.
Hope this helps, curious as to how Cloudflare will respond to this, so please update. But as an SEO'r it would depend how much risk you want to take in this case.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Free tool, and it ranks well for adult sites and checking if they are down, will that hurt us with ranking for normal sites with google?
Hi all, We rank for searches around "is youporn down" and similar because we provide a free tool to check if a website is up or down: https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/youporn I am worried that ranking for these adult searches is hurting us with ranking for things like "is reddit down", thoughts? I'd appreciate some input!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bwb0 -
I want to rank with this page http://www.servicesarab.com/%D9%86%D9%82%D9%84-%D8%B9%D9%81%D8%B4-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%AA/
i want to rank with this page http://www.servicesarab.com/%D9%86%D9%82%D9%84-%D8%B9%D9%81%D8%B4-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%AA/
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | saharali150 -
Key word Ranking are going down
Hi, my website's Keywords Ranking are going down, I am very new to SEO, I don't know what's the reason please help me out....my website is www.tourspackagedubai.com. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | tariqsalam0 -
Still seeing a terrible rank drop after last algo update?!
I'm still stumped as to why the ranking has gone so poor on a whitehat site. (see attached image) As you can see we've steadily been improving the ranking over the last 6+ months and then got hit with a massive change this month... I can't physically see any issues and Moz isn't reporting anything negatively that would have such a major effect.. Like not as if the drops were subtle... they've all gone into the 50+ section! Any insights into what may have changed in the latest algo update would be appreciated?! S0sD7d8.png
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | snowflake740 -
Adding Extra Domains
There are domains available which match exactly to my main keywords which I am trying to rank for. For example my keyword is "Green apple" and there are domains like greenapple.com . Do you think from Google stand point of view it is ok if I buy domains like this and when visitors go to these domains, automatically direct them to my main website? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Armin6661 -
Starting fresh on a new url after serious Penguin update down rank
Hi friends My site www.acupunctureclinicvictoriabc.com was recently hit by the penguin update and i dropped to page 5 of local searchs for my key words. A while back I had some bad link building done and now paying for it:( I thought the disavow tool (used 4 months ago) would deal with this issue but apparently not The current url is feeling like a lost cause. My question is if I start fresh on a new url, can I use my old content (or even clone the site and move it to a new url) without being punished for duplicate content on the new site? Any recommendations for starting fresh? I really appreciate any thoughts on this matter, as I am feeling a bit lost and bummed about this issue thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Silasrose0 -
Branded Anchor Text, Exact vs. Non-exact Match Domain
Hello, For NLPCA.com, when you search for "NLP California" in Google,the letters "nlp" are bolded in the SERP URL and so is "ca". See here. This is because "ca" is an abbreviation for "California" Thus, this is not an exact match domain but it is close. What should our branded anchor text be? I want to change the anchor text profile to 98% branded anchor text. The 3 names our company goes by are NLP California NLP Institute of California NLP and Coaching Institute Let me know if we should not use one or more of these names for branded anchor text.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Website Hacked now it's not Ranking
One of my domains was hacked right before I took over managing it. The hacker created around 100 links for simply grotesque things. After I took over I erased the entire site, rebuilt from scratch, new server (inmotion), rewrote every page, robots.txt every offending page, and even 301 just in case 404s were hurting me. I am now almost a month in and I have seen zero movement on anything rankings based. This is not a bad domain it was registered in 2008 and has a few decent citations because of the Doc's medical license. They registered for BBB in November and have a 30 year old listing citation from them based on business establishment. I must be going crazy but it's not ranking for anything except the homepage. I didn't know Google could hold a grudge for so long. The only ranking I can sometimes achieve is through Google Places which still has to compete with tough domains. I've already put in a reconsideration request and received a response stating the following: We reviewed your site and found no manual actions by the webspam team that might affect your site's ranking in Google. There's no need to file a reconsideration request for your site, because any ranking issues you may be experiencing are not related to a manual action taken by the webspam team. Just check it for yourself I know it's a work in progress but I'm not even considered relevant on page 50! And the crap links are still indexed!! A search for a keyword I'm aiming for with my client's name followed after gives me no results. I am currently using wordpress, yoast xml, and single keyword focusses. My market is tough but no way I can not rank for the keyword and my name.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | allenrocks0