Separate IP Address for Blog

[pbhatt]

Our developers are recommending we sign up for a cloud based LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, & PHP) server to install 3^rd party software (Wordpress). They said "the blog will be on a separate IP address and potentially can have some impact with SEM/SEO."

Can anyone expand on what impact this might have versus having it on the same IP?

[WilliamBay]

Well, having another site that points to yours from a separate IP address is essentially creating a completely unique website that will potentially pass along some ranking juice.

I'm not entirely clear on what your situation is, but if you are looking at the developers to create a place to create content, I would instead keep your blog under your domain and own that content, use that as thought leadership, and further deepen your brand.

While you won't get "juice" from another website pointing back to you, (which from one site would be insignificant), you would capture all those people, who are interested in that content, more directly.

Again, I would probably need more details as to what they want to do with that second site. But I doubt my answer would change a whole lot.

[SparkplugDigital]

The cons outweigh the pros. It is almost always best to put your blog into a subfolder like www.semoz.org/blog because links that the blog earns count towards helping improve the link authority of your domain.

[ShaMenz]

Hi,

My first impression is that your existing site is under windows hosting and your developers' advice is aimed at ensuring that your Wordpress installation is on a LAMP system. This makes total sense.

While it is possible to install and run Wordpress on Windows, the preferred option would always be to use standard LAMP hosting as there are things in WP that will not work as they should with Windows hosting. Most notable of the things that will be a problem is URL rewriting. Running WP on Windows requires a high level of expertise and is likely to require ongoing work, hacks etc over time.

In contrast, Wordpress can be installed and self-managed with great success on a LAMP system.

On the whole I would say that the solution recommended by your developers would be less frustrating and way less expensive than installing WP in a Windows environment (for both you and your developers).

Hope that helps,

Sha

[WilliamBay]

Well, there you just have plain old Australian ingenuity. Sha, as always, a couple steps ahead. Yes. If they want to install it somewhere else because of server configurations, that may be the issue. From a pure SEO standpoint, like Sparkplug (which I think I will name my next dog), and I mentioned, it's best to have your content fall under the same domain. And that make the most sense from a technical side of things as well. I'd prefer to use one CMS to control an entire site, as well as one hosting solution. But then again, I don't know your situation.

[ShaMenz]

Hi William,

Of course your take on what is ideal (and Sparkplug's) is totally correct, but my guess, given that the recommendation is not to move the entire site to the LAMP setup, is that they are faced with a bit of a catch 22.

Obviously without knowing the exact situation it is only a guess, but I would be betting that the main site is inextricably tied to Windows technology which makes it either impossible or cost-prohibitive to switch platforms. If that is the situation, then the proposed solution would be the best option if you definitely require a Wordpress installation.

The obvious alternative, since the blog would be separate anyway, would be to set up a Tumblr blog with links back to the main site.

Sha

[pbhatt]

You got it right on the money: "My first impression is that your existing site is under windows hosting and your developers' advice is aimed at ensuring that your Wordpress installation is on a LAMP system."

Why would you recommend Tumblr over Wordpress?

[pbhatt]

This is what I had concluded, but I don't know if the technology issues outweigh the SEO cons. What Sha Menz guessed is correct.

[ShaMenz]

There are social sharing possibilities available with Tumblr that can help SEO wise, as well as domain authority benefits that come with links from the blog to your existing site.

Andrew Dumont just wrote a post about changing from Wordpress to Tumblr for his personal blog.

As with everything it is a personal decision, but if I were forced to have a separate blog anyway, I think I would most likely go with Tumblr, unless there is some compelling reason to build a new domain from scratch.

Hope that helps,

Sha

[pbhatt]

Thanks for the info! It will really help us decide how to proceed.