Importance of Unique IPs

triumph · #1 (**permalink**) 09-06-2006, 10:50 PM

What would you rate the importance of having unique IPs for each of your sites? I know shared-hosting is the way to go and even on a VPS you may share many sites on one IP. I know Google likes sites that link to each other from unique ips from different class c's. Beyond that usefulness, is there any reason to worry about splitting up your sites to unique IPs? Besides SSL certificates and the like.

monaghan · #2 (**permalink**) 10-06-2006, 08:29 AM

The only real reason other than SSL is to have sites on different subnets for SEO purposes.

It will generally be cheaper to have shared IP's rather than unique. Also ARIN, RIPE etc... won't accept a single non SSL site per IP as justification for allocation of new IP's, so your provider may not even be able to offer you many IP's.

Some ISP's with bigger networks may be able to offer you IP's on more than 1 subnet per server.

triumph · #3 (**permalink**) 11-06-2006, 01:27 AM

My primary motivation is SEO, I was just wondering if there were other reasons as well. I actually have a provider in the US who will sell me additional IPs for a very good rate and I can get quite a few. I am considering consolidating some of my hosting and getting a dedicated server.

Just trying to make sure I have all my basis covered. I don't actually do anything that requires SSL certs right now, so no worries there.

brian · #4 (**permalink**) 11-06-2006, 01:15 PM

I know some SEO's regard unique IPs as an absolute requirement - but personally, I'm happy with shared IP's.

I think it's worth underlining that the importance of the site, along with the competitiveness of the industry likely play a role - but I'd also suggest that the SEO's who require unique IP's may be less trusting of webhosting companies they haven't already dealt with.

ninikins · #5 (**permalink**) 13-06-2006, 10:29 PM

It's never really been a big issue for me. I'm fine with shared IPs.

brian · #6 (**permalink**) 14-06-2006, 07:36 PM

I think the SEO reasons are usually justification in themselves, but as in the other thread, redundancy by hosting with different providers can add real security.

triumph · #7 (**permalink**) 19-06-2006, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brian

I think the SEO reasons are usually justification in themselves, but as in the other thread, redundancy by hosting with different providers can add real security.

Brian, I noticed in another thread you mentioned that you wanted 10 different ips from 10 different ranges from A Small Orange but they would not do it. Do you normally get unique ips from unique class c's for each of your sites?

Do you find a tangible benefit in that? That is what I am working towards, but having only been doing it on a limited basis for a short period of time I am not sure of the results.

brian · #8 (**permalink**) 19-06-2006, 05:59 PM

It's been in multiple patents with Google to devalue links from within the same IP range. Therefore a key need of my SEO business is to have a lot of reseller accounts, all from completely different C class (/24) IP ranges.

It's not so much that I see a benefit - but in Nov 2003 Google brought in an update (Florida) that at least in part seemed to extensively devalue links from within the same IP range.

A lot of people up to that point would simply host loads of sites on the same server and interlink them - after the Florida update when they moved them to different IP ranges, it apparently helped fix at least some issues.

TWD_Tony · #9 (**permalink**) 19-06-2006, 10:01 PM

I don't think that ARIN (who control IP delegation) would consider SEO as justification for a unique IP address

If you have a friendly webhost then you can explain it to them and they can just pretend the IP is for SSL purposes (or some other reasonable ARIN justification), the only other way around getting a dedicated IP on shared hosting is to buy a SSL cert and get your host to install it for you (they will automatically get a unique IP address for the cert and use it for your site and the SSL).

triumph · #10 (**permalink**) 21-06-2006, 11:53 PM

Oh yeah getting the SSL cert as a way to justify the unique IP is a good one. It seems though that is usually more costly. Have people had problems with webhosts giving them extra ips even if you are willing to pay for them?

monaghan · #11 (**permalink**) 22-06-2006, 06:56 AM

Putting different sites on shared IP's in multiple ranges is acceptable (assuming the provider has numerous servers or IP ranges to choose from). Unique IP per site without SSL is simply abuse of the IP allocation process

If you have a lot of sites, then you either want to put them with a big trustworthy provider (may be difficult these days to fins such a provider

) or you'll probably want to distribute them about through different providers anyway to limit your exposure if a smaller provider goes under. This will get you a good selection of different IP's on different subnets anyway.

brian · #12 (**permalink**) 22-06-2006, 01:24 PM

My experience is that webhosts usualy only have IPs within a couple of C class ranges at best - so what I end up doing is usually going with a wide number of hosts. There are some who have IPs in a lot of ranges, but that's a many eggs in one basket issue.

triumph · #13 (**permalink**) 24-06-2006, 08:06 PM

Is it enough to be on seperate class c's or do they need to be in different ip blocks as well?

brian · #14 (**permalink**) 25-06-2006, 10:53 AM

Different C classes should be enough - thought to be sure I liked to try and use different datacenters, too. Also, avoid too many concurrent ones, ie:
64.246.73.xx
64.246.74.xx
64.246.75.xx

You're basically looking for a random (natural) spread of IP's in your links where possible.