IP- based banning from search engines

[tencardcharlie]

Hi all - new member here

I've read that search engines sometimes ban websites because they share the same IP as banned sites. So basicly one could get banned by google because some other site hosted by the same server is breaking the rules (spamming and such)? Is this true? Some say it is, some say it's not. Anyone who knows?

[dominique]

It's called a "bad neighborhood" and yes, it can get you banned as far as I know.

I know it doesn't seem fair, but there are so many people spamming the engines, they often just do a clean sweep and ban the IP. Most spammers have 10s of 1000s of sites and the engines are not going to worry about each individual one once they find a nest.