SEO Question
 

Say I have a domain XYZ.com, and I create subdomains:

keyword1.XYZ.com
keyword2.XYZ.com
keyword3.XYZ.com
etc..

Now none of them have dupe content, but are all on the same IP. Some may be on the same topic - but as I said there will be no dupe content.

Is there any major SEO penalty? (none of the sites will link to eachother)

Bump for lil ol me.

if on the same topic you don't even want on the same C, much less the same IP

Ok, because I'm a little confused. Because people use services like thumblogger. Which basically creates your blog on a subdomain - are these heavily penalized?

put on different Ip/

put it on a different ip, there is a benefit to subs though, it may not last through the next update though...

penalized? how about just not accomplishing what they are hoping for . . . depending on their goal

really cause every thumblogger blog i have created lands on googles front page within 2 weeks for my keyword. so i must not be accomplishing my goal huh.

you are fucked, google will ban you for that

like I said there are a shitload of virtual hosts having hundreds of domains on the same ip.
Even more for the subdomain thinggie
take: blogger,wordpress.com,craigslist and all free hosts.
Take a look at blogspot's blogs lots of them have first page results.
Google doesn't do manual work, so if it works for this ones it will work for yours as well.

You're not selling SEO hosting either. :)