HostGator launching SEO Hosting

[PsiPro]

http://www.thewhir.com/features/0402...sting_Tech.cfm

April 2, 2007 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Search engine optimization continues to play an integral role in hosting with more Web hosts launching their own search optimization services to help their business customers increase traffic to their.



Brent Oxley, president and founder of Web hosting provider Host Gator (hostgator.com), says providing SEO services can require a host to walk a thin line between using inventive techniques to attract search engines, and activities that those search engines might consider exploitative.
Google (google.com) may use the various classes within a site's IP address to discover relationships between Web sites in an effort to spot spammers, and will often diminish links that are among Web sites in that particular range.
IP addresses that fall within the same class C range are likely to be close, and sometimes on the same server. Google penalizes sites with the same C class for linking to each other. For Web hosts and their customers, this can be an understandably frustrating issue, since certain sites have similar themed content and may wish to host their Web sites in one location.
This was one of the considerations in Host Gator's recent launch of hosting services enhanced for search engine optimization under the brand, SEO Hosting. The service includes all the expected SEO capabilities, but more importantly, customers can use it to optimize their Web sites for search engines by enabling them to host on multiple C classes.
By offering multiple C Class capabilities, customers no longer have to host their Web sites with multiple Web hosts, and instead, can consolidate all their sites with Host Gator.
"Technology changes, our customers' needs change, and we need to move quickly to give our customers what they want," says Oxley. "From our initial research, we also found that SEO hosting was an area that was underserved in the hosting industry, allowing us to stake a claim early."
Host Gator is offering the SEO Hosting service from $5 per month per C class. Customers can also choose to add or remove C classes at any point, while customers with more than 50 sites will be assigned a dedicated account representative. Oxley says that the new service should enable customers to save both time and money.
And while the common cynic would be quick to conclude that such a service caters to spammers, making their job easier by hosting with one vendor, Oxley has a different customer profile in mind.
"The primary users of our SEO hosting service will be Web masters with more than one Web property who are looking at multiple C classes," says Oxley.
The SEO Hosting brand is well timed, as demand for hosting on varied C classes continues to grow. To date, only a few Web hosting providers offer similar multiple C class hosting services, such as GotWebHost (gotwebhost.com) and SEO Web Hosting (seowebhosting.net).
"We do not know of anyone currently offering this type of service, which should give us a great jump on the competition," says Oxley. "Since no one else has been meeting this demand up until now, the response we've gotten from those looking for this type of hosting has been extremely encouraging."

Can anyone better explain the concept of Class C IPs?

[WHMAutoPilot]

( this is my knowledge on this and may be near correct, I am sure others will correct me if my look at this is wrong )

An IP address is made up of 4 Groups of numbers

11.22.333.44

The numbers ( or ocets ) make up the class block of IP's that make up that IP range.

11.22.333 => Class C ( the .44 is the Node or Host )
Each class C has 256 IPs ( 254 usable )

Class-C blocks of IP's are the norm for hosting companies

When SEO comes into play, similar domains that are on the same class-c block of IP's are normally weighted differently in rankings than those hosted on different class-c blocks.

Example:

Two identical websites with different domains used to capture better keyword hits on the domain itself for one small car search & find website.

mynewcardeals.com -> 11.22.333.125
findanewcartoday.com -> 11.22.333.252

That type of landing page setup for SEO ( splash pages ) would weight differently ( lower ) than the following:

mynewcardeals.com -> 11.22.333.125
findanewcartoday.com -> 11.22.215.12

Since these are on two different class-c blocks, the ranking and weight will be better since they will not be seen as "the same website", they will be seen as seperate site and get better rankings and results based on that IP range for each website.

Normally, in a standard shared realm, this can only be accomplished by having those domains stretched across different servers or, even different hosts. With SEO hosting, this would now be possible to complete on the same server.

after a quick google, this may help with the technical description of a class-c block of IP's

Class C addresses are commonly used for small to mid-size businesses. IP addresses with a first octet from 192 to 223 are part of this class. Class C addresses also include the second and third octets as part of the Net identifier. The last octet is used to identify each host.

This means that there are 2,097,152 Class C networks each with 254 possible hosts for a total of 536,870,912 unique IP addresses. Class C networks make up an eighth of the total available IP addresses.

Class C networks have a first bit value of 1, second bit value of 1 and a third bit value of 0 in the first octet.

Net => 195.24.53.
Host or Node => 107

[Serra]

IP addresses that fall within the same class C range are likely to be close, and sometimes on the same server. Google penalizes sites with the same C class for linking to each other.

This is where the idea that shared hosting, or having a bunch of sites on a shared account is bad for a sites SEO. Of course, that is just stupid. The penalty is really for a bunch of sites on the same class C all linking to each other. This is often done to generate a bunch of links to a site by creating a ton of sites and having them link together.

In the real world, sites with links to other sites don't often fall on the same class C, so the links are valid.

Let me point out that a server can only have IP addresses that are on the same Class C. (For normal servers, something special could be setup, but in general) So, having a dedicated IP or whatever, doesn't help because it will be in the same class C as the server.

[PsiPro]

I get it thanks

Originally Posted by Serra

Let me point out that a server can only have IP addresses that are on the same Class C. (For normal servers, something special could be setup, but in general) So, having a dedicated IP or whatever, doesn't help because it will be in the same class C as the server.

Do we know how HG will be planning to accomplish this? Will they have mirror servers or will they be using custom configuration servers? (I'm assuming the customizatoing is multiple uplink ports?)

[vtrain]

Originally Posted by Serra

[snip]

Let me point out that a server can only have IP addresses that are on the same Class C. (For normal servers, something special could be setup, but in general) So, having a dedicated IP or whatever, doesn't help because it will be in the same class C as the server.

If you have more then one NIC on can have a completely different IP address with no problems...

Vtran

[Serra]

Originally Posted by vtrain

If you have more then one NIC on can have a completely different IP address with no problems...

I don't think the limitation is NICs, I think its the switching system that connects it all. Having two different Class C is likely a switching nightmare.

[charlesgan]

Originally Posted by PsiPro

http://www.thewhir.com/features/0402...sting_Tech.cfm



Can anyone better explain the concept of Class C IPs?

in plain... if 2 domains is from same class C ip, meaning they are from same location or same server, = same webmaster owner ... you are running multiple domain with same theme or content. BAD.

i looking for class C, but was costly. not sure this $5 will get me what features in return. would like to look at the features once release.

currently i have host with few hoster, meaning different data centre... i having 4 major hoster... and still few sites are on same server as a group.