Hosting
Multiple Domains on Shared IP
Hosting multiple domains on shared IP
This has been a long time debate whether to host
multiple domains/websites on single ip. Some people and veterans
say 'one must have unique ip for each domain' and some people say
'no need to have it because search engines take the URLs in to account
not ips'.
Most of the hosting companies with reasonable hosting prizes don't
offer static ips for the customers unless the customer really needs
it like setting up SSL on their websites. If you insists of getting
a static ip for your domain it will cost you few more dollars per
month.
Before going in to that topic, we will see what is the meaning
of 'ip'.
What is static ip and shared ip?
Static ip:
Static ip is unique to your website. For example 123.2.234.234
is your website ip address, you can access your website by typing-
http://123.2.234.234/ in the browser. That means this unique number
represents your website in the WWW.
Shared ip:
Shared ip is shared by two or more websites/domains. You can access
the websites that share the same ip by- http://www.123.2.234.234/~user1/
http://www.123.2.234.234/~user2/ http://www.123.2.234.234/~user3/
etc,
Questions regarding shared ip:
1. Problem with banning: Years back the search engines used to
take in to account the ip address of the websites. Search engine
Technology has changed and virtual domains becoming popular, the
URLs becoming the priority than ip addresses of the websites.
So if one website that sharing the same ip was banned means all
the websites that were sharing the same ip was banned by search
engines. Even now somewhere I read that some search engines like
Google crawl by caching the ip to save bandwidth.
Virtual hosting is a fairly common setup with many web sites, more
common than many people think.
It is said that sharing ip is not that bad if all domains are behaving
good with out spamming search engines.
When I write to Inkotomi support desk, about this sharing ips check
the answer that they gave to me:
My question:
Are search engines index only one site from one IP address (one
DOMAIN (not URL) per one IP address) even though I submit both of
them regularly?
Inkotomi support service:
When submitting sites, search engines only take into account the
URL that is being submitted. Not the IP it came from. If the pages
are different then there will not be a problem.
Virtual domains are very common on the internet, so if what is
mentioned was true in all cases, search engines basically would
not be effective in finding anything.
The problem mentioned is most likely not all that common, especially
when priority submission are used due to the frequent refresh of
details.
My question:
If 10 sites are hosted on one IP. If one site was banned because
of spamming or someother thing. This banning is based on IP or domain
name? If it is based on ip then all other sites are affected in
search engine positioning?
Inkotomi support service:
Most engines will only ban the name(URL) and not the IP, although
some may ban the IP as well. It is pretty much up to the individual
engines how they do this.
If you suspect an IP has been banned you should contact the engine
in question and sort it out with them.
Published with the permission of Karl Anderson, Trellian Support.
2. Are shared ips are slow to access when compared to static ips?:
This is completely disbelief that sharing ip slows down the websites.
There are thousands of websites on one ip and if all those sites
slow down, that hosting company must have lot of angry customers.
3. What is HTTP/1.1?:
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) defines how Web pages are requested
and transmitted across the Internet.
HTTP/1.1 improves the virtual hosting business by including the
hostname as a header rather than by IP address. This means that
the server can support multiple virtual hosts without wasting IP
addresses. If you are running a browser that support this feature
of HTTP/1.1 (Netscape Version 3 and Microsoft Internet Explorer
3 and all higher versions) your site can be viewed by header and
not IP address.
HTTP/1.1 accounts for over 95% of the browsers running today. There
are more important security reasons for upgrading older versions
of Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer rather than using old
versions.
Older browsers that are not capable of resolving several virtual
hosts to a single IP number will instead displays a default index
document that would show all virtual accounts that were assigned
to that IP address, allowing the visitor to click on a link and
go to their desired web site.
4. Do I really need dedicated ip?:
If you are hosted by a Linux (Unix) system with a web server capable
of virtual hosting using headers, there is no reason at all for
needing a dedicated IP. The IP address of the machine is enough
to allow you access to your site using FTP or Telnet, and browsing
your site with HTTP/1.1 compliant browsers is not a problem. There
are no measurable speed or access restrictions experienced when
hosting with headers rather than IP’s.
5. Are there any drawbacks with Shared ip hosting?: There are not
really that many noticeable differences for the surfers. However,
there are few limitations to 'shared IP hosting'.
1. You cannot use Anonymous FTP 2. Older browsers such as lynx,
Netscape IE less than version 3 cannot view your site on a shared
IP. 3. You need dedicated IP for SSL on your site.
But How many people still using these older versions of browsers
is the next question. People always try to upgrade to newer versions
of browser softwares.
Follow these priciples in choosing shared or dedicated ip hosting:
If you want Anonymous ftp for your web site and SSL feature or
If you don't want to take risk of getting banned because of other
sites activity by sharing same ip. (Nobody knows whether search
engine bans the sites based on ip or domain name.)
Go for multidomain account that hosts only your websites. So nobody
share that particular ip except your websites. So no question of
banning because of other websites.
While you selecting hosting company for your multidomain account,
check what version of HTTP they are using. If they are using HTTP/1.1,
then you can go for that webhosting. Most of the webhosts use this.
If you still don't want to take chances about sharing ip, then
go for a multidomain account that provides unique ips for your websites
for little additional fee.
http://www.hosting-essentials.com/
You can host all of your websites on your single dedicated IP.
DISCLAIMER: All these are from my experiences and opinions. So
follow these based on your own judgement - Radhika
About the Author Radhika Venkata Subscribe
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