SEO hosting
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What is SEO hosting?
SEO hosting is designed to optimize your online exposure by using traditional and non-traditional SEO methods. This can include generating various original web page content, multiple websites on different IPs, or any other SEO scheme.
The philosophy behind SEO hosting is that having an attractive website isn't enough. If no one knows about it, you will not receive any traffic. Thus having the best website with no traffic is like the old proverb, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"
Multiple IP packages
A common belief is that spreading out one's marketing efforts across various domain names on many IPs, class Cs, and DNS is productive to increase one's online exposure. The theory behind doing this is that major search engines give better search rankings to related sites when one links to another from a different Class C IP address. With different Class C IP addresses, links between sites owned by the same individual or company appear to be from unconnected sites.
Most web hosts that offer SEO hosting offer similar hosting packages to other companies but include multiple Class C IP addresses with each account. Some offer private branded nameservers on separate Class C IP addresses. Webmasters can thus host various websites with the same web host and even on the same server, but theoretically, search engine bots won't be able to recognize that the websites are hosted and owned together.
Other SEO services
Some SEO hosting companies will include one to five hours of free SEO consultation along with each SEO hosting account. Or they may offer ongoing SEO, web development services, or SEO tools in addition to web hosting. This ranges between companies, and some SEO hosting companies do not offer these features at all.
Different IPs and different views
It's debatable if the tactic of using different Class C IP addresses makes a difference in how search engines rank websites.
Why using different Class C IP addresses may be useful
Google's published patents and patent applications refer to devaluing links when the site linked to and the site linking to it are hosted on the same IP range. It isn't known if this reference indicates how sites are actually ranked, but the belief that related IPs are a handicap for links has led many webmasters to host sites with different web hosts to be sure that they were on unrelated IPs. Now those that are concerned about their interlinked sites sharing IPs have the option to use an SEO web host.
Why using different Class C IP addresses may not be useful
In November 2006, Matt Cutts of Google wrote that Google does not penalize lnks to virtually hosted domains. [1] He described the belief that having multiple sites hosted on the same IP address will affect their PageRank as a "misconception."
Another argument against the usefulness of different Class C IP addresses is that if the IPs are registered to the same company, search engines can identify that fact and make a connection that way.
Summary
It may or may not be just a marketing technique to offer web hosting on different Class C IP addresses. However, it doesn't hurt (except that it costs more), and it might make a difference with some search engines. Also, some SEO web hosting companies offer additional SEO services as well.
See also
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