Is Google Punishing Hostgator or Multiple Sites on one Account?

[DomainFatigue]

I woke up this morning to find that five of my sites which are hosted on two Hostgator accounts, all of which were on the first page for the domain keywords (and some within the first three spots) have now been either knocked down several pages or completely disappeared. Yet two other sites that I have hosted seperately with ipowerweb still have their place. Can anyone explain this phenomena? Is Google punishing those who have multiple sites on one account or Hostgator accounts?

 

[NosajiX]

I have multiple accounts on a similar reseller solution, This is my take on what *could* be happening:

1) There could be a large number of sites with the same IP address as yours (because you no doubt are on a shared server) that are sites considered "spamy" or possibly guilty of non-kosher seo techniques such as stuffing, ect. A good way to check is to go on over to domaintools.com to see what other sites are on that server.
-Please not that I don't know for certain that Google does this but it definately seems possible.

2) - I worry about this net-neutrality business. If seo is subject to site load times, and ISP's start restricting bandwith, you can bet SEO will become a new ball game.

I moved to a VPS with my own IP, This has helped tremendously on more than one front. I no longer am subject to the wrong doings of others for the most part and I enjoy that fact. - It also gets me a little closer to "root" which is ultimate power LOL!

 

[draggar]

1) There could be a large number of sites with the same IP address as yours (because you no doubt are on a shared server) that are sites considered "spamy" or possibly guilty of non-kosher seo techniques such as stuffing, ect. A good way to check is to go on over to domaintools.com to see what other sites are on that server.
-Please not that I don't know for certain that Google does this but it definately seems possible.

There have been several reports of this but no confirmation from Google, I wouldn't doubt if there was a good amount of truth to it.

That is the worst negative of shared hosting.

 

[Fornit]

Maybe you need to try dedicated IP for your account, i think google likes them more than shared imho.
I have few sites on my account at hostgator and not saw any negative serp changes only positive and Google recently updated pagerank in datacenters maybe your changed too and that reflected on serps.

 

[dcristo]

Is the IP address blacklisted? I would be guessing it's purely coincidental.

 

[draggar]

I have few sites on my account at hostgator and not saw any negative serp changes only positive and Google recently updated pagerank in datacenters maybe your changed too and that reflected on serps.

You might be on a different shared server than the OP?

 

[Fornit]

You might be on a different shared server than the OP?

Maybe.. who knows..

 

[Theo]

Isn't Hostgator the Godaddy of hosting? Praised and hated by many at the same time?

 

[draggar]

Isn't Hostgator the Godaddy of hosting? Praised and hated by many at the same time?

Aren't all companies like that? :lol:

 

[DomainFatigue]

Thank you everyone for the tips. I guess I'll have to check if the IP is blacklisted. This really sucks... Most of these sites have low type-in traffic and only make me $$ when on the first page.... What's wierd is that they are on two Hostgator accounts not just one. I wish I could afford a separate hosting account for each site with a different provider, but that would just be too much. I have been trying to consolidate a little.

 

[Keynes]

Just get a dedicated IP upgrade on your existing hosting- well worth the money.

 

[DomainFatigue]

I checked the IP and they don't appear to be blacklisted. Maybe it is coincidence and I just took a major hit on these sites with the latest update. Still I'd like to protect myself. Does a dedicated IP upgrade cost a lot (showing my ignorance on the subject). I couldn't find it on the Hostgator site.

 

[draggar]

Dedicated servers / Ips generally cost a lot more than shared hosting.

 

[seeker]

it shouldn't cost a lot to get your own IP on a shared server.
Most hosting companies offer them.
I have my own servers, so I get different IPs to play around with, and for big projects, I allocate a single IP, it seems to help a lot.

 

[invincible]

What is the blacklist?

 

[dcristo]

What is the blacklist?

When an entire IP block is penalized by Google.

 

[Varchar]

You are absolutely right... same thing happen to my ranking going from #1 to #8 today. I check it from time to time and my domain is always #1. What's going on? What's your DNS? Maybe we are on the same server?

 

[DomainFatigue]

Thank you all again for educating me on the subject. I will look into a dedicated IP. Varchar I responded to your PM...

 

[HomerJ]

after much searching i finally managed to dig up this link. i'm not sure if this is the answer or not but check it out. scroll down to the June 28 post. http://www.hostgator.com/news.shtml

 

[Gerry]

Unknown to many (and not really making major newslines), at the beginning of the year (actually in late December) google changed their algorithm.

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/01/02/google-changes-algorithm

Searches are handled differently now to rank the most current news or most viewed sites first, regardless. They do not want the historical or older information being first (like wikipedia) in the search returns as their customers don't want this.

This is not to say what is happening to everyone in this thread is a result of this. But if your sites are static and not dynamic and constantly being updated and hit, then it will drop.

So you may want to look into this from the Google point of view which can be confusing as hell.