This article is absolute nonsense.  How did a self-submission get past editorial review?

Michael, which part specifically is "nonsense."

Keep in mind, sometimes the Sphinn editors push stuff through for their discussion value. Not necessarily because we agree.

Good Lord, Jill, he's babbling on about "SEO mystics" and claiming that putting your sites on different IP addresses "hides" who owns the sites, and "if you're acquiring links naturally, then it's almost certain that that every domain you obtain a link from is going to its own unique IP address."  Who thinks like this?

This is absolute crap advice preaching obsolete SEO ideas that were debunked years ago.

But that's the thing, he's talking to those who are NOT acquiring links naturally. This is not written for you or me, it's written for those that are intending to trick Google into thinking their network of sites are not related.

In which case, it sounds like okay advice. I can't say for sure if he's correct since I don't do that, but what he's saying seems to makes sense for those circumstances.

I can say for sure that he's not correct.  In fact, since he doesn't want links from the same IP address, I'll be more than happy to accept any 301-redirects he implements for those of his pages that only get links from either Blogspot.com or Wordpress.com.  They don't vary the IP addresses for their sub-domains.

In fact, I will GLADLY accept 301-redirects from anyone and everyone who wants to rid their Websites of those toxic same-IP-address links that are obviously weighing down their SEO strategies.

A Googler says here "if freehosts appear 2b massively spammed #Google reserves the right 2take action on the entire site"  Wouldn't that mean that this post does have some merit?

http://www.seroundtable.com/google-ban-host-13459.html

Hi seotheory,

Thanks for the feedback. I don't see however by stating that you want to receive lots of same-IP address backlinks in any way shows that I'm incorrect.

If you'd like to provide an example of a high ranking website of yours that has received its ranking solely from different domains from the same IP address that would be a great way to commence the discussion. However in the absense of such you could easily rubbish what I said and turn this into a rhetorical discussion, which won't serve much purpose.

The truth is Google does examine a lot of factors that may represent manipulation, particularly in a comprehensive manual review where certain very high authority backlinks have been flagged.

IP addresses are one thing, both algorithmically and manually, that can be used to determine whether sites are linked together in an unnatural way.This is a common known thing within many competitive niches, and hence the popularity of hosting based on unique IP addresses.

Of course, as stated in my post, this has no relevance whatsoever for legitimate, non manipulative SEO. But in terms of building the appearance of legitimacy among a large quantity of interlinked websites you own, the strategy is common. The aim of my post was to explain this in a way that people unfamiliar with the strategy may understand what the strategy is about, and why it's done the way it is.

@cloud36: "Wouldn't that mean that this post does have some merit?"

No.  Mr. Heron's advice is based on obsolete and outdated nonsense.

@StevenHeron: "If you'd like to provide an example of a high ranking website of yours that has received its ranking solely from different domains from the same IP address"

You're making that request of the wrong guy.

seotheory you obviously don't have a good grasp of the technical nature of what Steven was writing about. Everything he said is exactly correct from a technical standpoint. Even from a speculative standpoint what he said is well known and respected by those who don't practice complete white hat SEO. When I was working for companies that didn't care about white hat and encouraged black or gray we would ALWAYS use a hosting company like SEOHosting.com (subsidiary of Host Gator) that offered C Class IP's for hosting multiple sites. You obviously are the wrong guy for trying to provide an example to back up what you say, since what you say has no merit. You say, that putting your site on different C Class IP's than a shared IP doesn't hide your site. Well it certainly does if you did private registration. Tell me how Google is going to know you have two sites you own linking to each other if you do it this way?? You also dispute the thought that if you're acquiring links naturally, then it's almost certain that that every domain you obtain a link from is going to its own unique IP address."  Who thinks like this? Anybody in their right thinking agrees with this. If you get 1,000 links from different websites then chances are that 999 of them are going to come from websites with a different C class from each other. Great article Steven. When I first started this would have at least help me answer that question about what a C Class IP was and make an educated decision if that was right for my overall marketing plan of not. Thanks for sharing it.

Hi Josh,

Thanks very much for the feedback.