We sometimes get asked about Google and having web sites on the same server. Â There is an internet myth that Google doesn't like web sites hosted on the same server or sharing the same IP address and may actually give your site a lower ranking.
If you think about this for a moment and consider that most of the web sites in the world are hosted this way it would be pretty dumb of a smart company like Google to do this. Â Don't just take our word for it however.Â
As far back as 2002 a Google director of technology commented on tis during an interview with Slashdot (the full interview is here) when in reponse to the question
"Why in this day and age does google continue to penalize sites that are virtual hosted? With ip addresses becoming harder to get/justify every day why does google discount the relevance of links that don't come from a unique ip address. Please don't just deny it, I think the Internet community deserves an explanation "
"I can't just deny it? What are my other choices? [:)] Actually, Google handles virtually hosted domains and their links just the same as domains on unique IP addresses. If your ISP does virtual hosting correctly, you'll never see a difference between the two cases. We do see a small percentage of ISPs every month that misconfigure their virtual hosting, which might account for this persistent misperception--thanks for giving me the chance to dispel a myth! "
So there you have it. Â Google doesn't mind, and your web site won't be ranked any worse for using shared hosting. Â Although this article was written a number of years ago now we have heard nothing from Google or seen any evidence from them that it would be any different now.
