Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Why is my servers ip address showing up in Webmaster Tools?
-
In links to my site in Google Webmaster Tools I am showing over 28,000 links from an ip address. The ip address is the address that my server is hosted on. For example it shows 200.100.100.100/help, almost like there are two copies of my site, one under the domain name and one under the ip address. Is this bad? Or is it just showing up there and Google knows that it is the same since the ip and domain are from the same server?
-
Hmmm, this is a weird one. My guess is, since Google originally found those links (maybe before your site launched, but the pages were linked to and live through the IP address?), it keeps returning to them and finding them. In that case, not much you can do, but keep those canonicals on.
Canonicals really can save you from duplicate content problems: I've had clients with multiple versions of every page based on the path you take to a page, and canonicals have allowed them to rank well and avoid penalties entirely. As long as you're doing everything else right, hopefully this shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Sorry this ended up falling on you!
-
According to my latest links in Webmaster Tools the first time it happened was October 2012, which is before the site launch. It seems to have accelerated this year. It is a total of 16341 links but under linked pages it only says 27.
-
Hm, this could have, though. When did you first notice these backlinks from the IP address in GWT?
-
I am unsure to be honest. We had an organic traffic drop in 2012 the week of the penguin release. We launched a new site last year which killed organic so I am trying to improve our rankings. I can say confidently we have had nothing in Webmaster Tools, but maybe it has hurt traffic.
-
Well, from an SEO perspective, this hasn't lead to any penalties or reduced rankings, right?
-
Recently we switched to https so I started using self-referential rel="canonical" on all my pages. I can't figure this out, and nobody else can either. I am on all sorts of boards, forums, groups, and nobody has ever heard of this. I just don't get it.
-
Did you add canonicals, at least, to make sure that Google wouldn't find duplicate content? That's what I'd be most worried about, from an SEO perspective.
-
I never solved the problem. I made a new post to see if anything has changed. It seems strange that nobody else has ever had this problem. I looked all over Google and nothing. I just ran Screaming Frog and nothing showed up.
-
How is this going? Did you solve the problem?
One quick note: if you can't find a link to the IP address on your site (or, a link to a broken link or an old domain), run a Screaming Frog or Xenu crawl and look at all external links. There's probably a surprise footer link or something like that that's causing the problem, and it'd be easy to miss manually. But tools find all!
Good luck.
-
Yeah it's generally a DNS setup. If you're hosting with a company the best thing to do is open a ticket and get them to walk through it with you. Most providers will have their own admin panels.
-
I have looked and can't find anything in the site that goes from ip. I have looked in Webmaster Tools and it doesn't show any duplicate content. We are on a Windows server, think it would be pretty easy to redirect the ip to the domain?
-
There might be a link or something directing the crawlers to your site's IP address instead of the original domain. There is potential for getting flagged with duplicate content but I feel it's fairly unlikely. You do want to fix this though, it would hamper your backlink efforts. These steps will correct this issue.
1. Setup canonical tags on all your pages. This lets Google know that 1 url should be linked for this page whether they're on the IP or domain.
2. Set your host up so that anything that directs to the IP is automatically redirected to the domain. This can be done with your hosting company, or through .htaccess, or through PHP. I suggest you do it with the hosting company.
3. Check through your site and make sure no links point to the IP domain. If there are no links pointing to the IP, the crawler shouldn't follow.
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
-
Is Moz Premium Show Authenticate Keyword Difficulty States???
Hi, I am a regular user of Moz premium. I was advised some of my friends about Moz benefits. 4 months ago I found a low competition micro niche longtail keyword and made a website on it. The keyword difficulty was 16 and I was confident that I will rank on the top page. but now after posting 15 articles of that micro niche, I am still ranking on 129 position on Google search results. Can anybody advise me what is the problem with my site. Was the keyword difficulty had manupulated states on authenticative. My site name and https://www.vixpr.com/. Please guide me how I can take further benefits of Moz Premium.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Iuj873g0 -
Website structure - best tools to analyse and plan, visually
Hi - I am about to analyse and then re-plan the structure of a website and think it would be best to do it graphically - in the form of a chart. Are there any tools you would recommend to visualise the structure of an existing website (perhaps something that can scan and then represent a websites) - or plan out a new/revised website? Thanks in advance, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
P.O Box VS. Actual Address
We have a website (http://www.delivertech.ca) that uses a P.O Box number versus an actual address as their "location". Does this affect SEO? Is it better to use an actual address? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Web3Marketing870 -
Should I use change of address when moving to subdomain
Hi guys So we had a domain that was only for one country, www.example.com 1 year later we decided to go to another country so we will have all the current website under a country subdomain like : ae.example.com we did a 301 redirect
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | awrikat
Should I perform a change of address action from www.example.com to ae.example.com ? please help
Thanks0 -
How do I add https version of site to Bing webmaster tools?
I could add my site to Google Webmaster tools with no problems, but when I try to add it in Bing webmaster tools it just redirects me to what I already have. Everything is staying the same but the switch from http to https. Anyone else experienced this? This is what I just received back from Bing and it doesn't seem right- I understand that you switched to the https version of your site and you're now trying to use the Site Move tool. However, in order to do this, you must verify the https version of your site first. You cannot do this because it just redirects you to the dashboard. We thank you for reporting this to us. We've investigated on this matter and can see that you're already put a redirect from the http to the https version of your site. We also checked the /BingSiteAuth.xml file and this also redirects to the https version. At this point, we suggest that you remove the current website (http version) that is verified through Bing Webmaster Tool and add your https domain. When done, use the Site Move tool. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite1 -
Getting a Sitemap for a Subdomain into Webmaster Tools
We have a subdomain that is a Wordpress blog, and it takes days, sometimes weeks for most posts to be indexed. We are using the Yoast plugin for SEO, which creates the sitemap.xml file. The problem is that the sitemap.xml file is located at blog.gallerydirect.com/sitemap.xml, and Webmaster Tools will only allow the insertion of the sitemap as a directory under the gallerydirect.com account. Right now, we have the sitemap listed in the robots.txt file, but I really don't know if Google is finding and parsing the sitemap. As far as I can tell, I have three options, and I'd like to get thoughts on which of the three options is the best choice (that is, unless there's an option I haven't thought of): 1. Create a separate Webmaster Tools account for the blog 2. Copy the blog's sitemap.xml file from blog.gallerydirect.com/sitemap.xml to the main web server and list it as something like gallerydirect.com/blogsitemap.xml, then notify Webmaster Tools of the new sitemap on the galllerydirect.com account 3. Do an .htaccess redirect on the blog server, such as RewriteRule ^sitemap.xml http://gallerydirect.com/blogsitemap_index.xml Then notify Webmaster Tools of the new blog sitemap in the gallerydirect.com account. Suggestions on what would be the best approach to be sure that Google is finding and indexing the blog ASAP?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sbaylor0 -
Will changing Google Places address hurt rankings?
I have a client transferring ownership of their service business (photo booth rental). The current listed address will change, so my main concern is preserving the rankings during the transition. Should I change the Google Local listing to a new physical address, or change it to "serve a surrounding area"? It seems best to set as "serving a surrounding area", but I know Google is really weird about making local listing changes. I've seen and heard about countless listings falling completely off the map after being updated. Any advice appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Joes_Ideas0 -
Multiple IPs (load balancing) for same domain
Hello, I'm considering moving our main website to a multiple servers, perhaps in multiple different datacenters and use a DNS round robin load balancing by assigning it 4 different IP addresses (probably from 4 different C classes). example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | maddogx
ourdomain.com A 1.1.1.1
ourdomain.com A 2.2.2.2
ourdomain.com A 3.3.3.3
ourdomain.com A 4.4.4.4 Every time you ping the domain you will get a response from another IP of the group. Therefore search engines will see a different IP each time they scan the site. We have used the main IP for our website for past 6 years without changing it. We have a quite good SEO in our niche which I don't want to loose of course. My question is, will adding more IPs to the domain affect any how on the ranking ? What is the suggested way to do it anyway? What is recommended to do before and after? Thanks for you attention and help in advance. Dmitry S.0
