Different websites under one IP is it really a bad practice?

[Gsmithmike]

Has anybody faced a situation like this?

I have a client a Law Firm, and i just figured it out that they have over 36 websites under single IP address.

The websites have same design, but the content on each website is different. I really do not know if this is a good practice, and i am trying to understand why they needed different websites for different law services?

- in my logic by doing this you are just competing with yourself, something else i have realized is all of them are pointing to same local address./ so if you are on dog-bite-florida.com you see same business name, address and phone number as on car-accident-florida.com , now these are just an example so the domains are not correct. but my main question is

- Will they get penalized for it? will this interfere with local or organic ranking?
- Will google realize all these websites are same, even if the content is unique?
- What is the solution? 301 redirects to one website?
- Would it be better if we create inner pages for each service page?

I believe they would end up hiring alot more SEO people and for a law firm, i believe this is too much,. have you seen these types of practices before? what is your idea?

If there are links to provide best practice or solutions, please share

 

[JoyHawkins]

There is a bunch of things you need to evaluate in order to figure out what the best way is to handle this. First, do the sites link to each other? Second, do the sites get any organic traffic at all? Third, do the sites have any backlinks pointing to them and if they do are they good quality?

 

[BenFisher]

The questions that Joy is asking is all very relevant.

I come from a background in the web hosting industry, where they tried to game the SEO system as much as possible, this was one practice they tried and got nailed on.

The problem:
By diversifying to so many sites, you dilute the brand.
You have to now build links to all the sites, vs focusing on one.
There is a low probability of an algorithmic penalty
There is a higher than normal chance of a manual penalty (ie being reported)

Truth:
Google does not care if all the sites are on the same IP address... unless... like Joy is stating, they create a pattern of abuse that is detectable by an algorithm or a human eye. (If your gut says it is a bad practice, it probably is)

The solution:
Choose one memorable or older domain name.
310 redirect each domain to content that is relevant to the target page

Old article, still relevant;
https://www.seo.com/blog/multiple-domains-seo/