One reason you'd have several small shared hosting packages dotted all over the place is if you were caught up in the old SEO method of hosting a small personal network of sites on different IP addresses. That might still be a reasonable assumption to make, but these days of so many dead SEO practices that once proliferated before 2012, is it even viable any more?
Is Multiple IP Hosting Dead?
Whoa, what are you saying here? Everyone knows that if you want to host a small network of sites that provide link authority to a "money site" with links that you control, you have to host them in different places, right?
Well, that used to be true. Maybe it still is to a certain extent, but think about how much SEO has changed over the past 18 months. Your chief reason for doing this was to try and fool Google into thinking you didn't own the sites that were linking to your money making site, right?
But Google has gotten very good at sniffing out blog networks. So good that even if you think you've done everything possible to throw them off the scent, you'd be wrong.
One thing I figured out a long time ago is that I might be pretty smart, but the collective brains that run Google are a whole load smarter!
That means the chances are, unless you have really gone to extreme lengths to cover your tracks, there will be a footprint that can be tracked and traced back to you. In any case, the value of links is not quite as high as it once was and you can rank sites surprisingly well without them.
So is there any point to trying to cloak a network of sites by hosting them all over the place anymore? I am tending to think not.
Out on a Limb
I know the SEO guru crowd will disagree with me on this, and to be honest I couldn't care less what they say. I have little faith in anyone's opinion on what works best these days.
Remember, unless a person actually works on Google's algorithm and truly knows how it works, they are not qualified to tell me or you how to optimize a site (on or off-site) to get the best serps rankings.
So a lot of blustering and hot air might convince a lot of you out there that these so-called experts know what is right, but it doesn't convince me of anything. So there, I'm out on a limb in my reasoning and I kinda like it!
So Save Some Money on Hosting Already!
So all that money you're probably spending on a bunch of shared hosts may be money wasted. The sensible approach would be to try and save money on hosting these days where possible.
That money you're spending on shared accounts could be put to better use by sucking it in and splashing out on a reseller hosting plan, like the popular Aluminum plan from Hostgator.
It will cost you less than $25 a month to run it if you want to pay monthly and that can handle a lot of sites. I spoke about the benefits of reseller hosting in the previous post you can read by following that link.
Put simply, if you're spending $5 a month on 6 or more shared accounts, you can save money by consolidating them into one reseller. Better still, if you want to stump up the cash for a two year billing cycle, you can save 25% off the total cost of hosting by using the Hostgator coupon printed above in the right hand column on this page.
Here it is again if you missed it: NOWSAVE25PC
You can argue the pros and cons of doing this until the cows come home. But if you are finding money a little tight these days because maybe your sites aren't producing the income they once did, you might want to consider this option for saving some cash.
Think about it at least and you might just see the common sense in what I'm saying here.
