Good active thread on SEW forums about finding a hosting company that will support the use of unique ip's on different c blocks. There has been a good amount of discussion on this in the past, and while I don't plan to summarize the whole argument, I will highlight the opinions of those regarding the matter.
Nick, a member at SEW forums, posted on trying to find a hosting company that would correctly accomodate the use of unique dedicated IP addresses for websites someone might have. He relates to finding a hosting company to do this is quite difficult, or not something that every host can do. The thread quickly turned to a debate on whether these unique dedicated IP websites were better than websites that were hosted on virtual hosting accounts. Jeff M. posted that there is factual data to to support the fact that virtual hosted domains can rank number 1 for their competitive keywords. So if you hosted virtually, which a good number of people probably are, then you should be quite okay. I have optimized many virtual hosted accounts that have done quite well in the serps.
Several members voiced their opinion that the whole concept of dedicated ip address is without merit, and that it does nothing essentially for SEO. But! It depends on your intent and use of these accounts. If you intention is to link together multiple websites of similar content then this is where unique ip addresses do help out. ihelpyou made a good point back when the thread was started that "If an owner's "intent" is to spam the search engines with multiple domains for pretty much "one" main website, with the goal to achieving higher link popularity, then maybe what your post implies has some merit."
Having several websites hosted on dedicated IP's I understand the use of this method. But my reason for this is more web site related issues, and to make sure that I cover all areas so that potentially nothing happens without myself knowing about it. This is not an SEO/SEM technique in my opinion, its a webmaster technique. The member NFCC makes a very good point, and its sums up the use of dedicated IP's on c-class blocks, quite well, "I think that when the oppourtunity to control any aspect of our work presents itself we should take it."
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