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When people hear about SEO hosting, a common query is “Why should I use SEO hosting; surely I can optimize my site for search with any hosting company.” That’s completely right, but SEO hosting has a specific place in the SEO strategist’s tool box. In this article, we’d like to clear up some of the confusion around SEO hosting and help you develop an understanding of what it is and why you might need it.
What Is SEO Hosting?
The defining feature of SEO hosting companies is the number of IP addresses they have available for their clients to use. If you keep abreast of the news in the web hosting space, you’ll be aware that IPv4 numbers are hard to come by. When IPv4 was developed, there was no comprehension of the huge number of devices that would eventually be connected to the Internet. There aren’t enough IP addresses to go around, and so hosting companies often don’t have anywhere near enough to cover all their clients.
SEO hosting companies specialize in having many more IP numbers available than standard web hosts. A hosting company like ASEOHosting has many hundreds of Class C IPs (also known as /24s). That’s why SEO hosting is commonly called multiple IP hosting.
That abundance of IP address diversity gives SEO hosting companies a distinct advantage when compared to standard hosting companies.
Benefits Of SEO Hosting
The fundamental advantage of having a hosting account with a multiple IP hosting company is that each of the sites you deploy can have its own IP, rather than being forced to share 1 IP across many shared hosting accounts or one hosting account with many domains. Each domain can have its own IP address.
There are four main SEO benefits to multiple IP hosting:
International SEO
Google and other search engines use the geographical locations of IP addresses as a ranking signal. Sites with IP addresses located in relevant regions will rank higher in the SERPs than those from outside that region. SEO hosting provides multiple IPs in different locations, which makes it easier for sites to rank in the relevant geographical area.
Local SEO
Local SEO is the other side of the international SEO coin. Sites with IPs tied to relevant geographical areas are going to rank better than those without.
Avoiding Association With Penalized Domains
When many sites are hosted on the same IP, as is the case with shared hosting, if the other sites using that IP are penalized by the search engines for spamming or distributing malware, the innocent sites can be hit too. Having an IP per site prevents blanket penalties from harming innocent sites.
Using Distinct IPs On Your Network Of Sites
There are many legitimate reasons for having multiple interlinked websites. For example, a company might prefer differently branded sites to appeal to diverse market segments. If those sites are hosted on the same IP, the links between them are devalued: they don’t pass the same link juice as sites on distinct IPs. SEO hosting allows each site or microsite to exist on a different Class C IP.
SEO hosting can bring significant benefits to international and local SEO, as well as helping to avoid penalty by association.
