Similar Sites on Same Class C

[ChrisInColorado]

Hi there,

I asked a similar question a while ago - please pardon the dupe.  I figured being more specific may help.

Here's the scenario:

I have two customers which sell very similar products.  They both host with me so they are both on the same class C of ip addresses.  Content on sites is similar due to the nature of the business/industry.

• There are no links between the two sites - they do not link to one another
• The HTML is about 50% the same, content near zero other than site structure.   They have similar category structures.

Question - could being on the same Class C adversely effect rankings of either.  One site did particularly well until Panda came around and it's sloooowly coming back.  Some advise has been given to the client that the IPs being on the same Class C is killing rankings.  I am trying to either validate or refute the claim.

All help/feedback appreciated.

[CMC-SD]

As far as I know, the Class C issue is only relevant for linking. It's widely suspected that links from domains on the same Class C IP are less valued, since that's a good indicator of a "fake" link (i.e. a backlink that the site owner created, rather than a true editorial backlink).

[NiallSmith]

Chris,

So far as I know this is not an issue. If I'm not mistaken, you have it set-up so that the registrar is pointing multiple domains to your host IP and you're maintaining all of your sites within one cPanel (or one parent directory).

If that's the case, it's OK. I asked a similar question several months back and the general consensus seems to have been that it's not going to effect rankings as long as a majority of the links are not coming from the same IP block. I think this kind of piggybacks on the whole 'link farming' problem that was popular amongst Black Hat SEOs back in 2009-2010.

For some additional insight, check out the discussion here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/managing-multiple-websites-via-add-on-domain.