Introduction: SEO, short for search engine optimization, is a method for getting organic search traffic. Hosting, on the other hand, is about getting a machine to host your site. So what does one has to do with the other?

SEO, short for search engine optimization, is a method for getting organic search traffic. Hosting, on the other hand, is about getting a machine to host your site. So what does one has to do with the other?

Well, the search engines have started to look into all kinds of information that is related to a domain name. This goes way beyond the content that is hosted on your website.

For example, link building is supposed to be good for SEO. A back link counts as a “vote” for a domain. So in theory, the more back links you get, the higher your rankings will be. However, in practice, it’s not that straight forward. Your back links should spread across a wide number of domain names that are hosted on different IPs. The whole idea is to ensure that you link building looks natural to the search engines. If your back links all come from the same IP address, the search bots may come to the conclusion that either you own the sites, or that you may be buying links on the same sites.

Natural linking means that others link to your site because you have got great content. When that happens, your back links will automatically come from a range of domain names and they are all hosted on different servers. The search bots determine that by looking at the IP addresses of the servers.

For this reason, if you are thinking of setting up a handful of websites specifically for SEO reasons, it’s definitely wiser to get a hosting package that will provide free dedicated IP addresses. You may then use the IP addresses to host your sites so that they appear to be hosted on different servers. Usually, if you purchase IP addresses separately (i.e. one by one) there is a monthly charge. If you buy the IPs in a package, you tend to save more.

Another benefit of having your own dedicated IP address is that you will be certain that you don’t share the same server as a site that is banned by the search engines. IPs are shared in a shared hosting environment. Although it’s hard to proof whether a banned site on the same server has got direct impact on other sites, some webmasters prefer to be safe. Having a separate IP address ensures that your site is not implicated in any way.

Finally, you will need to perform some on-site optimization on your site for SEO purposes. This, you can do on your own or you can hire someone who has SEO experience to do all the work for you. But bear in mind that many of the freely available software on the Internet are already search engine optimized. Perhaps all you need to do is to perform a little tweaking.

You don’t even have to hunt high and low for the software. Your hosting provider should be able to allow you to install SEO friendly software with just a few simple clicks. This is the type of hosting packages that you should be looking out for if your primary concern is SEO.

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