Bad for SEO to have two very similar websites on the same server?

[WebServiceConsulting.com]

Is it bad for SEO to have two very similar sites on the same server? What's the best way to set this up?

[benjaminmarcinc]

Hey,

How similar are they? Is the content the same? If you have the same website and content then it can be considered duplicate content. In my opinion same server or not i would make changes so that are unique, layout, images and content. Hope this helps.

[jesse-landry]

Yeah whether they exist on the same server or not is irrelevant.. If they are separate domain names selling the same product/service from the same company with the same content then you're lookin' for trouble.

If it's all unique no problems.. they'll have separate IP addresses and domain names no matter.

[JaneCopland]

Hi there,

The first question, as the others have stated, is whether the content has been duplicated. If so, that's a problem no matter where the websites are located.

However, if you have two totally different websites from a content point of view on the same topic, hosting them together should not be a big problem. The only issue would be Google's understanding that the two resources were owned by the same entity, and therefore ranking them together might not constitute the most diverse user experience for people searching on the topic. Google reads registration information as well, and also understands that some servers / hosting services host hundreds of thousands of websites so some topic cross-over is natural without the sites being owned by the same person or company. If you had two sites selling pet food on the same dedicated server for the sole purpose of having two sites rank for the same pet food queries, I'm not 100% sure Google would ignore their hosting though.