Influence of IP Address In SEO

When we discuss about IP address and SEO, the first thing that strikes us is bad neighbourhood, dedicated Vs shared IP etc. I have decided to revisit all aspects of IP address in regards to SEO.

In Web Hosting: Once you have decided to finalize a hosting company for the website the first thing that you need to do is to request for the IP address/range that will be allocated for the website. Why do you need it? What you do with it?

Not every hosting company will give you the details of the IP before you complete the registration and the payment procedures. You require an IP address for the website to ensure that it is not blacklisted. I have already covered IP address blacklist in 10 Essential Pre SEO checklists for Site Analysis post which requires you to check the IP using the blacklist checker tool.

Shared IP Vs Dedicated IP: The next thing that you would do is to decide whether to go with a Shared IP or a Dedicated IP. If you have decided with a dedicated IP then repeat the above process again. In case of a shared IP ensure that you check your neighbours without fail. How you do it?

There are various online tools for reverse IP, the one that I would prefer is MyIPNeighbors. Another simple tool for the process is to use ip: Live Search advanced operators. Just give ip:xx.xx.xx.xx in Live Search and you will get the list of website associated with your IP. This should give you detailed information about your neighbours based on which you can decide.

This is a controversial topic in SEO since different webmasters have different thoughts. There isn’t any conclusive evidence that a website hosted in shared IP will perform better `than in dedicated IP or vice versa. The only disadvantage that I see in a dedicated IP is its operating cost and nothing else.

Static Vs Dynamic IP: Search Engine spiders can effectively crawl websites with static IPs with HTML 1 as it will be able to resolve the address immediately. However for websites with dynamic IPs it will try parsing the websites with HTML 2, 3 and 4 until it resolves the address for the specific sites. This can take up to 3 months to happen. In the meantime it will use the IP of the main site on this IP, often times the hosts site. It will come back until its able to find your specific IP. During this period of 1-3 months, any links that you build to your site that is found by Google, will get credited NOT to your site, but to the main root site on the shared IP, often times your host site. To avoid any such complications always go with Static IP for your websites. For more details on this topic please refer Why using Static IP is beneficial –by Google Engineer.

In Canonical Issue: In some cases a website with www version will point to a different IP to that of a non www version. Here search engines treat the either of the version as a backlink to the other. So redirecting the non-www version alone doesn’t resolve the issue. Ensure that individual pages are redirected to their destination properly.

C block IPs: This would lead to a confusion on what a c-block IP in hosting and in SEO perspective. In networking Class C IP will ranges from 192.0.1.1 to 223.255.254.254 any IP within this range is termed as Class C IP.

In SEO, a C Class IP is the number in the third block AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD here “CCC” is the C-block IP. Google tend to assume that websites linked with in same IP are related. Let us consider two websites A and B
IP address of A – 122.167.188.12
IP address of B – 122.167.188.13

From the above IPs Google is likely to consider that the websites are related. Now with this webmasters have started requesting backlinks from different C block IP. I would say Class C is not the only thing that Google use to relate websites.

(Source: thatsseo.com )

3 Approaches to Social Media

Thinking about social media? Or are you waist deep and need some help? A session today at SES NY highlights different approaches to social media, its purpose and how and why you should get involved.

Li Evans, of Key Relevance, hammers home the need for social media strategy within her presentation.

Social Media - done for the sole purpose of traffic or links - probably isn’t social media you should be doing. Social media is not about your marketing message, it’s about what the customer has to say good or bad. It’s about them talking about you.

Whatever you do socially, remember that the end user has control of your message and sometimes your brand. Li goes on to explain that these conversations are happening any way, online and offline, so would you rather be part of it or continue to ignore it?

Imagine if a group of your customers invited you to a party they were having to talk about your product? Would you attend? Of course you would. Or you would be stupid not to.

So when those ‘parties’ are happening online every day it’s interesting how many companies don’t rsvp.

Li reminds the audience, that there are multiple tools to help you engage in Social Media. It’s not just Digg or Facebook or Twitter.

But before thinking about the tools, think about your overall approach.
1. Start with a plan
2. Know where your audience is online
3. Integrate with SEO and PPC
4. Define Goals & Measure, Measure, Measure
5. Take What Works & Improve it

Next, is Beth Harte, of Harte Marketing & Communications.
She starts by explaining that attention to social media by the PR industry is lacking. Specifically, the industry tends to still focus only on media, dodging crisis and ignoring customers.

It’s no longer just about the journalist. There are many conversations on blogs, forums, social media and PR needs to move toward putting the customer first.

Once you have a plan that rolls up to objectives and strategy, here are a couple ways to dive in:
1. Online newsroom, make it more than a repository for press releases
2. Social Media News Release which is searchable, includes keywords and tells a story

The next step for the PR Person is to connect the dots between offline and online to reach customers in a more effective way.

Rob Key, of Converseon, is here to represent the agency side of Social Media.

The marketing funnel has gone from a very linear approach to a Dr. Seuss type of funnel which includes conversations in multiple destinations and specifically destinations that aren’t always controlled by the brand.

While social media may not be hard to execute, culturally it can be very difficult. Since social media transcends marketing disciplines, it makes it even more difficult.

When developing social media:

• Utilize and engage different groups (comm, marketing, media, search)
• Pilot with low-profile business unit
• Encourage your clients to start listening first, then engage

Social media can be successful when you:
1. Listen
Free tools like Google Alerts can get you started. Conversation monitoring is documenting conversations. Conversation mining is taking the information, creating insights based on sentiment and letting that information drive what you do next.
2. Organize
Social media is an engine of organization transformation. Within client organizations, help them decide who ‘owns’ social media to make sure you have an internal champion and educator.
3. Policy/Ethics
Understand the cultural nuances of the different communities and educate the client on what is appropriate in what channel.
Work with your client to create a code of ethics and guidelines in an effort to increase confidence and cut down on the review process.
4. Infrastructure
Identify what conversation assets you have and what ones you need. How will you make this happen and within what timeframe?
5. Identify opportunities to listen and connect
Every social network is not right for every brand. Select based on where your target market is.
6. Engage with the Right Philosophy
Participate and learn. Identify the elders and come bearing something of value.
7. Measurement
Measure changes in conversation, increase in positive sentiment, share of conversation.
Then identify what a 10% increase in sentiment means to the overall business.
( Source: toprankblog.com )