Deleted bump. Don’t do that.
You don’t need multiple IPs for SEO. You really don’t. If you did, everyone on shared hosting, which has HUNDREDS of websites on one IP, would be screwed.
Ipstenu, for past 2 days I am having hard times finding anybody who knows multisite well and could help. Getting a bit desperate here.
Based on my knowledge, I think you are wrong. If you have similar content on one IP, sooner or later all websites under that IP will be devalued. Sure if all domains have unique content on various topics it might be OK.
I just have 2 websites and I want to use same posts but just different themes, why? different target groups, from 2 countries. Each one require specific approach. Later might be more than 2. Any how, content will be very similar, so separate IPs, would help resolve any SEO issues IMO.
So do you know is there a way to do so? I’ve read on some posts that people have done it, but don’t know how.
IP doesn’t matter.
Duplicating content, regardless of your IP, domain name or anything else, will devalue your SEO.
Full stop.
Re-read that.
What you’re doing, duplicating your content 100%, will cause your SEO to drop. The only way around that would be separate languages for each site.
Yes, there’s a way to do it, but the reason I asked you WHY you wanted to is to know if there really was a need. You don’t really have a need, but if you insist…
The reason you can’t find WORDPRESS help on that is becuase WordPress doesn’t care about the IPs. It’s Apache’s job to map IPs to your vhosts. You need to look at the Apache config: set up either 5 separate VirtualHost entries that all point to the same DocumentRoot, or tell Apache to listen on all available IPs, and use a wildcard match on a single VirtualHost section.
Similar content != Duplicating content. In other words, some duplication might occur, but it is far from 100%. Just want to have extra layer of protection with those dedicated IPs.
If 2 websites will be in top 3 in Google for competitive keyword, I bet it will make a difference (dedicate vs single IP). So far, I never saw that 2 websites from same IP in top 3 or even top 10 (depends on a keyword phrase).
Thank you for Apache config advice. =)
I’ll bet you that IP won’t matter a gnat’s patootie. You will always have more to worry about with duped content than IP. Google knows that, Bing knows it, even Yahoo knows it. But have at.
If Google calculates # of linking C-blocks to a website, it might have similar algorithm for website valuation.
p.s. I do worry about dupe content and will minimize it. 😉
They don’t. It would cripple hosting services, which work by allowing multiple domains on the same IP. Practicality.
Unless you plan on interlinking your sites literally hundreds of times then having the install on one IP is *fine*.
You will have to take my word for it.
Having one site in one language and the other with slightly different content n another language really does not matter enough to put it on a separate IP with multisite.
If you have two completely separate install and wish to put each of them on their own IP address for your own piece of mind, go right ahead.
But.
After my own consultation with many SEO experts (because I get asked this enough), and with my own extensive multisite experience, this is one of those the juice ain’t worth the squeeze” kind of things.
I think you both are right. Using dedicated IPs doesn’t make sense.
Thank you!
Not quite so fast…
There are some cases…
Example, my sites are accessible mainly from the Philippines but hosted in the USA. There are two main providers here PLDT and Globe and they both have problems accessing the whole of the Internet at times… So I found an address each of them could access well, mapped both addresses to one directory where my WP Multisite / Multinetwork is running 40 different sites, and even when the local companies have backup problems, each can reach the site on its own main trunk connections.
In other words, 40 different domains (and 40 different sites) are running on 2 different IP’s. All domains (sites) can be reached on either IP.
Not exactly the question, but it does show how different IP can be addressed to the same WP Multisite for a specific purpose. There is no duplicate content here, Google loves it and many of the sites are on the first page of their SERP for the appropriate keywords.
To answer the OP… Map each IP to the same folder/directory. Then set up your DNS so each domain points to only one IP. Each domain will come in on a different IP but end up in the same folder and be handled by the same multisite WP.
I won’t predict the outcome of your SEO, we do not have any duplicate info. But let us know… Who really knows what happens over at Google on a day to day basis!
Your use case is different than the OP, and in your case makes sense. 🙂
I field this question A LOT from people who are trying to manipulate SEO results and set up multisite for (literally) hundreds of sites interlinking each other.
