We all know that Search Engine Optimization is built on the basis of outperforming your competitors in search engine results and maintaining that competitive level throughout the life of your site. But while we can all agree on what SEO actually is, there are many SEO myths that can cause even the best SEO expert to make mistakes that may not just cost their client’s search rankings, but may cost them in the way of resources as well.
SEO Myths: Dedicated IPs are better than Shared Hosting for SEO
This myth was perpetuated by content networks in the earlier days of the internet. These networks were comprised of sites all based on a similar domain name that all hosted the same content on a shared server. The misconception was that when Google indexed a single site’s content, that content was essentially being duplicated multiple times on the same IP address and negatively affecting the rankings of all the related sites. However, Craig Silverstein (Google’s Director of Technology in 2003) in an interview with Slashdot said that this is exactly a myth. Occasionally a shared hosting service will incorrectly configure virtual hosting, thereby potentially affecting the SEO of your site, but otherwise there’s no difference according to Google.
Except…
A shared host is known to have slower page load times due to shared overhead resources among multiple domains on the server. We know that load times are but a single factor in the game of SEO, but if the slower load times are a consistent problem with your domain, a dedicated IP may help you optimize your site’s loading speed. Additionally, a shared hosting solution may slightly affect the rankings of sites it contains if one or more users engage in questionable SEO and/or content practices.
While a dedicated IP is preferred for the benefits in-and-of-itself, the effects on SEO are all but nonexistent.
