Which flavour of Unix?

[Hendrik]

After 13 years on a shared server, we are moving to a managed dedicated server. We are hosted by Easynet, and the shared server has been running Linux all this time, so I am tempted to stay with Linux.

They have offered a choice of 2 flavours of Linux, Debian and Red Hat. Does anyone have any views as to which would be preferable?

I was also intrigued to read (on the Webfusion site) that as we will now have a dedicated IP address of our own, as opposed to sharing the IP address on the old server, this may help us in terms of SEO. Has anyone found this to be a benefit?

Thanks

Hendrik

[grantglendinnin]

I prefer Debian, as bugs seem to be fixed much quicker than Red Hat patches.

With regards to SEO - a Dedicated IP (UK) will definitely help with SEO. I've just assigned a year-old site to a dedicated UK-based IP, the site has gained rankings in the last 3-4 weeks, no other work has been carried out on or off site, so what else can it be, other than fluctuations or Google giving preference to sites with a dedicated IP?

[Hendrik]

I am not very technical, and I am sure that everyone will think this really basic, but after 13 years on a shared server, I just discovered today that all I had to do was use a link like this http://www.selfseo.com/find_ip_address_of_a_website.php to find the IP address of my site (www.grand-illusions.com) and then plug the IP address into a site like this http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/we...on-web-server/ and suddenly I can see all 122 of the sites on that shared IP address.

The site also shows the following message -

<quote>
It appears that the web server located at 212.135.1.101 may be hosting one or more web sites with explicit content. The web sites in question are highlighted in red below. There is a possibility that all of the web sites on this web server may be blocked by web filtering software. Search engine rankings for these web sites may be affected as well.
</quote>

Well, all four sites are school web sites, as far as I can see, so I doubt that there is any explicit content. But the fact that they THINK there is explicit content cannot be helpful.

So I guess that is another reason why a dedicated IP may get better results.

Hendrik

[grantglendinnin]

Remember most web hosts will assign a static IP for a very nominal fee, eg. Webfusion: £10 PA.

[pinbrook]

if you use these look up sites to get info about yourserver you should cross reference the results as they can be very misleading.

the ultimate place to go is RIPE as these are the overall governing body for IPs.

your hosting control panel will tell you the ip where you are hosted, failing this use "ShowIP" this is a firefox extension that will show the ip in the bottom right of your browser

[Sean Williams]

I think it's just because the highlighted sites all have sex in the name, like wessex etc.
We've just moved to a dedicated server, largely because we got fed up with being affected by other site's behaviour affecting our speed, response and blacklisting of the IP address at Hotmail etc.
Highly recommended, but a lot more expensive

Linux is the way to go for ease of use, but I don't know enough about the flavours to make a recommendation there.