Multiple Domains vs Individual packages

[21stcn]

Hi there,

So I'm a webmaster with many domains. They are all currently on individual packages.

Many hosting companies like hetzner & gridhost offer multiple domains with their packages. Now assuming these are genuine multiple domains (ie: different domains point to different folders on the server, and not different domains all pointing to the site root directory) and assuming the hosts have the technologies to efficiently administer multiple domains on a single server, I need to know if there are other implications to do with search engines.

Will these domains share an ip? If so, does google's crawling become altered by the presence of multiple sites on a single server location? I don't know too much about it, but obviously don't want to go the multiple root if it in any way affects the SEF of the individual sites. They need to operate as isolated sites but on a single server.

Can anyone offer some advice on multiple hosting? It seems worthwhile for the cost but does it sacrifice speed (if host not geared for it properly) and web presence (if single ip interferes with search engines)? What is the best hosting option for a webmaster with dozens of domains with relatively low traffic on each?

Thanks so much

21stcn

[murraybiscuit]

most hosts offer a single account with multiple domains linkable, dns control, email setup etc etc via a control panel.
how they handle the load is really up to the hardware on the server. lots of small sites with low traffic shouldn't be much of an issue for anybody.
most of the sites in the world operate off shared ip's and virtualhosts, so i'm not sure where you're picking that up from.
just follow the link in my signature.

[21stcn]

Thx for reply. I picked it up here:

"Unfortunately, most peopled don't realize that the IP address of their web site has an impact on the amount of page rank that is transferred from each backlink, especially if the sites interlink within the same niche.

If you have several sites in the same niche you will need to to keep them from being indexed as a single entity by the search engines, either through the use of multiple hosting plans, or a single dedicated plan with multiple IP addresses. If you plan on using the interlinked sites for eCommerce, then it may be best to consider multiple hosting plans."

http://webhostingrating.com/hosting-guide/multiple-domain-hosting/reasons-to-purchase-multiple-web-hosting-plans/

[murraybiscuit]

i guess there may be something to that - if you're got a lot of links between your sites, you could have just set up a bunch of fake sites on the same server and just put links all over the place to up your seo through fake referrals.
i'm not sure that you'll be penalised if the amount of links is low though. i wouldn't really stress too much about it. it certainly doesn't warrant the mission of putting your sites on different ip's imo.

[21stcn]

Great thanks. I'll give it go.