Are different IP addresses enough for sites with similar content?
-
Hi all
We're looking at moving our 2 websites onto a cloud hosting package. The content on our sites is very similar (but not duplicated) so at the moment they are on separate servers.
If we move to the cloud, is it enough for them to have different IP addresses on the same cloud system, or should we host in separate clouds?
Thanks in advance
Heather
-
Hi Ryan
Thanks for your response. I can assure you that pursuing black hat methods was never the intention. I don't think anyone on SEOmoz would want that label. But I can see why you'd see it that why.
It was decided that both websites should offer the same products, focussing on their 2 key products but then saying "we also provide such and such through our sister brand". We are happy to have the association and for Google to know the 2 sites are related.
The reason I asked the original question was due to the advice of an SEO company we used to use who said that we needed to move one of the sites to a different server if we wanted them to rank for their own keywords. I guess they weren't telling us the whole story?
From what you say, a new content strategy is probably the answer.
-
Frankly, it sounds like what you are asking is "how can I trick the search engines into not realizing these two sites are related". I am sorry if that is blunt, but it seems to be accurate. Google is exceptional smart and has tons of data to use to detect manipulation. A few examples:
-
who owns the domain? If at any time the same entity purchased or was listed as an owner of the domain, it is reasonable to think Google is aware of this information and no matter what action you take the sites may be considered related.
-
do the sites use the same code? Even if you change logos and text, if the same base code is used for both sites, it is likely Google can recognize unique aspects of the code and relate the sites
-
you mentioned similar content. Google is also quite capable of recognizing various forms of revising the same content
-
are these separate servers with the same host? If so, it is likely they have the same C-block in which case the sites can be related in that manner.
There are many other means by which Google could establish a relation between sites: same Google WMT accounts, sites accessed by the same IPs, same backlinks, the list is quite long.
If the purpose of varying the IP address is to hide the relationship from Google, I would suggest not even worrying about it. You are pursuing black hat methods and to pull it off would require extensive experience and resources.
-
-
Hi Marcus
We have 4 products. 2 come under the main brand, but the other 2 come under a separate brand that is more appropriate for the market they are targeting.
Each site focuses mainly on their 2 primary products, but also has a section for the secondary products, introducing the other brand and sending them to the other website.
Due to the industry we're in, content is pretty controlled, so creating completely different content for each site isn't straightforward.
All I need to know is if we need to be on separate servers. My priority is to get the sites moved asap and not rebuild and rewrite content at this stage.
Thanks
Heather
-
Hey Heather, if the sites are so similar, can I ask why you have two? If they are truly similar, and serve the same market / goals etc, why not make your life easier and maintain one, truly unique site?
If there is a distinct reason for both sites to exist, then it is worth investing some time and effort to make sure that the content is truly unique across both sites.
These kind of questions are very tough to answer without a clear definition of 'similar' so if you wanted to include a link or provide a little more details regarding what the similarities are then we could likely assist further.
Hope this helps,
Marcus -
Hi Heather,
To be honest it is more about the similarity between your content rather than the IP addresses that might determine any penalty considerations. Essentially because cloud hosting is virtualized (and thus can offer different IPs) they will be seen as separate dedicated servers if the virtualised resource is set up as such (i.e. the cloud hosting is split into 2 virtual servers and given dedicated static IPs).
Good luck!
Mike
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
-
Duplicate Content
Crawl Diagnostics has returned several issues that I'm unsure how to fix. I'm guessing it's a canonical link issue but not entirely sure... Duplicate Page Content/Titles On a website (http://www.smselectronics.co.uk/market-sectors) with 6 market sectors but each pull the same 3 pages as child pages - certifications, equipment & case studies. On each products section where the page only shows X amount of items but there are several pages to fit all the products this creates multiple pages. There is also a similar pagination problem with the Blogs (auto generated date titles & user created SEO titles) & News listings. Blog Tags also seem to generate duplicate pages with the same content/titles as the parent page. Are these particularly important for SEO or is it more important to remove the duplication by deleting them? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Technical SEO | | BBDCreative0 -
Linking shallow sites to flagship sites
We have hundreds of domains that we are either doing nothing with, or they are very shallow. We do not have the time to build enough quality content on them since they are ancillary to our flagship sites that are already in need of attention and good content. My question is...should we redirect them to the flagship site? If yes, is it ok to do this from root domain to root domain or should we link the root domain to a matching/similar page (gymfranchises.com to http://www.franchisesolutions.com/health_services_franchise_opportunities.cfm)? Or should we do something different altogether? Since we have many to redirect (if this is the route we go), should we redirect gradually?
Technical SEO | | franchisesolutions0 -
Content on subdomain...
We recently moved our Wordpress site to a new host (WPEngine). We had forums on the old web host, which we need to migrate to a new forum platform (Xenforo) and integrate into the WP site. Since WPEngine only allows Wordpress on their servers, we need to install the forums at another web host, on one of our other domains. We might point to the forums through a subdomain, like this: forums.our-primary-domain.com The main reason we're re-installing the forums is for SEO value. HOWEVER, since our forum content will be on another domain, will we have an issue? If so, is there a workaround that would give us 'credit' for that content? Thanks much.
Technical SEO | | jmueller08230 -
Staging site and "live" site have both been indexed by Google
While creating a site we forgot to password protect the staging site while it was being built. Now that the site has been moved to the new domain, it has come to my attention that both the staging site (site.staging.com) and the "live" site (site.com) are both being indexed. What is the best way to solve this problem? I was thinking about adding a 301 redirect from the staging site to the live site via HTACCESS. Any recommendations?
Technical SEO | | melen0 -
Duplicate Footer Content
A client I just took over is having some duplicate content issues. At the top of each page he has about 200 words of unique content. Below this is are three big tables of text that talks about his services, history, etc. This table is pulled into the middle of every page using php. So, he has the exact same three big table of text across every page. What should I do to eliminate the dup content. I thought about removing the script then just rewriting the table of text on every page... Is there a better solution? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | BigStereo0 -
Similar Content vs Duplicate Content
We have articles written for how to setup pop3 and imap. The topics are technically different but the settings within those are very similar and thus the inital content was similar. SEOMoz reports these pages as duplicate content. It's not optimal for our users to have them merged into one page. What is the best way to handle similar content, while not getting tagged for duplicate content?
Technical SEO | | Izoox0 -
On a dedicated server with multiple IP addresses, how can one address group be slow/time out and all other IP addresses OK?
We utilize a dedicated server to host roughly 60 sites on. The server is with a company that utilizes a lady who drives race cars.... About 4 months ago we realized we had a group of sites down thanks to monitoring alerts and checked it out. All were on the same IP address and the sites on the other IP address were still up and functioning well. When we contacted the support at first we were stonewalled, but eventually they said there was a problem and it was resolved within about 2 hours. Up until recently we had no problems. As a part of our ongoing SEO we check page load speed for our clients. A few days ago a client who has their site hosted by the same company was running very slow (about 8 seconds to load without cache). We ran every check we could and could not find a reason on our end. The client called the host and were told they needed to be on some other type of server (with the host) at a fee increase of roughly $10 per month. Yesterday, we noticed one group of sites on our server was down and, again, it was one IP address with about 8 sites on it. On chat with support, they kept saying it was our ISP. (We speed tested on multiple computers and were 22MB down and 9MB up +/-2MB). We ran a trace on the IP address and it went through without a problem on three occassions over about ten minutes. After about 30 minutes the sites were back up. Here's the twist: we had a couple of people in the building who were on other ISP's try and the sites came up and loaded on their machines. Does anyone have any idea as to what the issue is?
Technical SEO | | RobertFisher0 -
If I redirect my WordPress blog to my main site, will it help my main site's SEO?
I have separate sites for my blog and main website. I'd like to link them in a way that enables the blog to boost my main site's SEO. Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks in advance for any advice...
Technical SEO | | matt-145670