Website Hosting Reviews

There are two main definitions of SEO Web Hosting:

1.  Hosting websites you own on different class C IP addresses is what some people refer to as SEO hosting. People or companies use this technique in an attempt to avoid the search engines from knowing their blog farms or network of mini sites cross-link or all link to a "money" website. 

2.  A web host that makes sure it's platform and services are all SEO-friendly in an attempt to give you the best chance at ranking in Google, etc.

Different Class C IP Address SEO Hosting

There are web hosts that specialize in providing website owners different class C IP addresses.  The server that hosts your websites all have IP addresses. An IP address looks like:

67.95.64.197

The third set of numbers, in this case "64", is the ‘C’ class in an IP.  The issue is, all websites on a server within the same data center may share the same IP address with the exception of the last number.  This makes it simple for search engines like gbot or bing to identify "related" websites that that cross link to each other. A "related" website link may not be the true vote of popularity to a website that Google is looking for. 

Sometimes links from the same class C IP address are removed from the search engine ranking algorithms. If your website has too many same class C links, your site could even be penalized by Google.

In response to this issue, some people conceived the concept of “SEO Hosting”.  Or hosting their websites on different class C IP address so it's not obvious to Google, Bing, and Yahoo that the websites are related. 

This is where they will sell you hosting on completely different sets of class C ip addresses. People often use this to hide their mini site networks, blog “farms” or cross linking networks.

Some people buy hosting from a company that specializes in providing this type of SEO hosting.  However, each class C IP address is $4-$7 per month from an SEO host.  That's really not cheap when compared to regular shared web hosting plans, which are in that same price range per month.  So, smart people have taken this concept to the next step.  They actually buy a shared hosting account on multiple different best website hosting providers.  This approach has the added benefit of providing a different server location as well in addition to unique class C IP.  Search engines can detect server locations, so getting accounts with different web hosts is a step up from buying different class c's from one host.

If you're looking for this type of SEO hosting, see our list of best website services companys, and buy a plan from multiple on the list.

Remember that Google has access to whois information, which allows them to see who owns a domain if you don't use private whois services.  So you need to get whois privacy as well for this type of SEO hosting to work. 

SEO-Friendly Web Hosting

SEO-friendly hosting is another definition of SEO hosting.  This type of SEO hosting isn't trying to trick search engines.  SEO-friendly web hosting is all about building your website in a way that is friendly for search engines.  A SEO-friendly web host is:

- Reliable:  Your site needs to have a high uptime. Search engines don't want websites that are down in their search results.

- Fast page load times:  Google loves websites that load quickly.

- Allows you to code your website in a search engine friendly way, including adding meta tags.  Not all "template" builder web hosts allow for unique meta tags, which makes it more difficult for search engines to know what your web pages are about.

- etc

SEO-friendly is really the things you would normally look for in a website host.  You can find the web host that will do the best job on your site via our website hosting reviews.

So there you have it.  That's what SEO hosting is.

What is SEO Hosting? Best SEO Web Hosting Service

You may have wondered what the marketing message "transfer your domain name" means when you saw the message in your web hosting control panel or otherwise.  "Transfer your domain name" just means changing your domain registrar.  Web hosts now offer domain name registration services as well, so transferring your domain name to them helps them make a few more dollars off of you their customer.

There are a few reasons why you want to do that and pricing is one of them. Your web host might offer you free domain name with your hosting package but since you already got a domain name, they might offer to renew it for another year for free if you transfer your domain name to them. However, note that it's best practice to keep domain name registration separate from your website host.

Most domain registrars will offer a cheap on year starting cost to lure you to transfer your domain name to them. If you want to squeeze a few bucks out of your domain names every year, you can actually transfer your domains from registrar A to registrar B this year and transfer it back to registrar A next year.  For example, GoDaddy only charges $7.49 if your transfer your domain name to them if you click on this link while they charge over $11 for new registration or renewal.

If you own 20 domain names, it may also be more convenient to have all of them registered in one place so you can control everything easily.  Plus, I wouldn't recommend changing registrars every year to save a few dollars.  Your time is worth way more than the couple of dollars you'll save.  Moving domains is, well, a real hassle.

Please remember that changing your domain registrar doesn't mean you need to change your web host. You can move your domain name from Register.com to GoDaddy while still hosting at your website at HostGator. You would pay your domain registration fee to GoDaddy instead of Register.com post domain transfer completion.  Note: you'll want to make sure your DNS entry stays the same during domain transfer so your website doesn't go down.  You also have the option of a free website transfer from Hostgator as well.

What Does "Transfer Your Domain Name" Mean?

How does a domain name point to your web hosting account?  How does the internet know at what web host your domain is hosted at? The pointing of a domain name to a web host is accomplished via the Domain Name System or DNS.  Pointing your domain name to the right place is pretty easy - it's just a simple setting at your domain registrar. 

When you sign up with a web host, they will give you their DNS setting.  A DNS looks, for example, looks like this one from Bluehost (see best blog hosting provider.

ns1.bluehost.com
ns2.bluehost.com

The "ns" in the DNS stands for nameservers.

You just need to update your domain name with the given DNS address in the control panel of your domain registrar.  Then bingo, your domain name is now pointed to your web hosting account.

Let's say you are not happy with whatever web host you're currently using.  You're not stuck there if your domain is registered separately at a domain registrar (we think GoDaddy is a great registrar).  You can easily get a new hosting account a different provider, and then update the DNS setting for your domain.  Then your domain points to your new web host.  Note, your website files will still be located at your old host.  So, you'll have to move your files to the new host, or build a new website.  Hostgator will help your transfer your website for free. Or you can read this Guide to Moving Web Hosting Providers.

How Does a Domain Name Point To Web Hosting?

Look, good webmasters know not to use free web hosting for important websites.  I'd personally never use free hosting for any website I plan to spend more than 20 minutes launching.  In other words, I never use free hosting.

Why?  Because Google has said in the past that they can ban all the sites on a web host if the an unusual percentage of sites on that server or host are spammy.  What good is a website it there's a chance you won't get any visitors to it?  Google could use a domain level ban, or even an IP address level ban to remove these websites from their search engine results.

This was again confirmed recently.  A Google employee in Search Quality named Kaspar Szymanski made this tweet:

"if freehosts appear 2b massively spammed #Google reserves the right 2take action on the entire site"

So Google again confirms their right to take action on all the sites on a server or at a hosting company if they feel there is too much spam present.

What is there to learn from this tweet and previous Google communications on the subject?  Here's my take:

1. Don't use free web hosting.  Period.  Reputable, cheap shared web hosts are easy to find.  Check out website hosting reviews.  
2. Consider hosting your important websites on a dedicated IP address.  If you're not sharing an IP address with other websites you don't control, then your site won't be harmed if Google has to take some sort of action against a spammy IP address.

Learn From Google Employee Tweet| No Free Hosting, Dedicated IP Address