Did you know that your site is probably being punished by Google right now? Yep.  It’s probably not ranking as well as it could on Google, and is getting a lot less traffic as a result.

Odds are, if you’re like most people, you have a shared hosting account.  That means that your website sits on a server at a company like GoDaddy and there are hundreds, if not thousands of other websites on the same computer.

The problem is, you have the same IP address as all of those other sites.  It’s like your street address.  That’s where you’re located in cyberspace.  Since you share the same address, it’s like you’re in the same apartment building.  Now, if you’re living next door to someone who is breaking the law and harming little kids, you can imagine how people might wonder why you never did anything when you noticed all of those little kids going into your neighbor’s apartment. Just living next to a sleazeball could damage your reputation.  But, what’s that have to do with your website?  Well, if you share the same server and have the same IP address, in Google’s eyes, you have an association with all of the other websites on your server.  Imagine if a number of them weren’t the type of sites you’d want to have any affiliation with.  Can you see how that could damage your reputation and cause your rankings to suffer?

If you’re worried that you may be sharing a server with hundreds of other sites, give us a call.  We’d be happy to run a quick test and let you know.  Hope that helps.

Chadd