Well, the other day I went to theGypsy's blog, as I often do. A guest post gave three tools for detecting bad neighbourhoods and told what to do. http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Se … mpany.html

OK. So I put a site that I've been having ranking troubles with, into the tool and was horrified. My neighbors are not indexed in Google, despite having between 30,000 and 123,000 backlinks. There are quite a few occurrences of the three Ps and the graph of acquired links shows why there would be a problem.

My new friend suggests that I should move out to get away from bad neighbors.

I really don't want to change hosts, especially if I'll be no better off.

Any ideas on how big a factor is bad neighbors on the same subnet? I'm the only domain on the IP.

Thanks.

I would have thought that that search engines would be smart enough not to take into account other sites on shared hosting....they would be useless if they did not. It would be the same as other sites linking to you - there is not much you can do about that.

Laurie - you can ask our friendly host to migrate you to a new server if you have any concerns. Do a check on my domain - I am the only one there - want to be neighbors?!

Thanks Laurie. Thats indeed a very good tool. Something that most webmasters might be looking for.

Its better to know your bad neighbors in order to take necessary steps and not getting penalties from google and others.

Sorry  - I am struggling with this one. It is probably a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing, but how would I change my IP address even if I wanted to?

My broadband is supplied by BT(UK), so does that mean if I wanted to change my IP address I would have to change my supplier.

I couldn't if I wanted to as it happens as it belongs to my employer.

However as it has nobody else on the domain I don't suppose it matters.

My real question is: My site(in my sig) is hosted by Heart Internet, but that tells me I am on the same IP address so how are the two linked.

I am assuming that I login to my site via MY IP address but why should my site be affected by this as the IP domain is in Chester, whereas my site is based somewhere down south. BT has nothing to do with my site except I use it's Broadband network to talk to it - so again I am struggling to connect how sharing a communication protocol can affect the rankings of a site?

I realise this is probably me mixing technologies but I'm not with how I might be affected.

kz - basically several domains can be hosted on the same computer (server) and all share the same main IP.

The article implies that the content of an undesirable site on the same server can affect how search engines regard your site.

Personally I think it is not worth considering - no matter what server you are on you have the same risk. You could be changing servers every week and never get one that is better.....

The only way is to get your own dedicated server (you can do this via your webhost if they are big enough) and your use of the internet warrants it.

matte wrote:

Personally I think it is not worth considering - no matter what server you are on you have the same risk. You could be changing servers every week and never get one that is better

there are certainly instances where it highly worth considering

I've been caught a couple of  times in the past sharing IP's with apparent spammers which were on many email service providers' blacklist. In both instances we could not get figure out why our emails weren't getting through to anyone, until we finally ran checks on our IP range. The hosting company did not even know until WE informed them of our neighbour's reputations. Not a good time for business

thus is the benefit of a good host.

I was contacted by my host once who had paused an email campaign I was running using a template provided by a blue chip company....they monitor all this stuff like hawks.

So my suggestion is ensure you have a good web host!

Nic wrote:

I've been caught a couple of  times in the past sharing IP's with apparent spammers which were on many email service providers' blacklist. In both instances we could not get figure out why our emails weren't getting through to anyone, until we finally ran checks on our IP range. The hosting company did not even know until WE informed them of our neighbour's reputations. Not a good time for business

How do you find out if you are on the same IP as spammers and more importaintly for me (as we are on own server) how do I find out if the people that want a link exchage are safe?

If anyone is after a dedicated or vps server I can prob help you out so pm me if you want link to our server sales

You can check blacklists here: http://www.mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx

Hey all

For starters, the fact that search engineers are addressing such considerations to the point of patenting must at least mean understanding the underlying concepts must be at least thought about. That isn't the only bit of information retrieval reference that we see this in. When search engineers consider something, I tend to pay attention

Here is the post on the Google patent; Host Level Spam Detection

Beyond that we've seen more than a bit of anecdotal evidence that speaks to the potential of this having validity. There have been more than a few instances brought to my attention since the post(s) which warrants further investigation...something I shall try at some point going forward.


We also know that linking to so-called 'bad neighbourhoods' can be problematic as well http://www.google.com/support/webmaster … swer=35769

This means some research might be a good idea when linking out to websites that you're not familiar with... some due diligence is warranted.


So at the end of the day, make of it what you will - but when I see patents/research papers that are looking at these relations, it is worth another look.... ya know?

Thanks for the response and the links, Gypsy.

I'm inclined not to get excited about it, for now. Will keep it in mind though.

i use the bad neighborhood link checker tool quiet often.need to check the remaining ones.
Good information

Can you safely say a site with PR is not in a bad neighborhood? as surely if a site that asks for a link exchange with say PR2 must be ok as google would not give them the PR if in a bad naighborhood right?!

I checked it. Its worth trying.