Does it matter where your website is hosted?

[matthewjmoody]

We've had some advice from an "SEO" guy who works in the same serviced offices as us that we need to move our .co.uk websites from our current US host to a UK host - because it will improve our search rankings!

Thoughts anyone as I didn't think it really mattered but I remain with an open mind that possibly he might be right?

cheers for any advice
Matthew

[jacked]

It has a slight effect in regional rankings, so if you have your site hosted in Australia, its rankings will be higher in the Australian version of Google. Google.au I think?

Matt Cuts made a video on this.

[afam4eva]

Hosting has an effect on search engine optimization. For example if you're hosting a site and your clients are based in India. You should get a host that has their server in India with an Indian IP.

[Tyler Abernethy]

doesnt make that big of a difference

all that matters is that your site stays live 24/7

go with hostgator


Best Regards,
Tyler Abernethy

[alexacc]

It is important to select country of you hosting.

[Tyler Abernethy]

Originally Posted by alexacc

It is important to select country of you hosting.

Im not so sure of that can you prove it?

the .co.uk is all that matters in Google's opinion from what I have experienced.

[SEOpsychic]

as far as i'm concerned, it doesn't matter. just host with a good host with an excellent uptime, optimise offpage and onpage well and you'll be good. facebook ranks high in countries they don't have hosting/centers.

[affilorama-portal]

Since your websites already have country-specific domains ( co.uk ), it is not necessary to move them to servers located in the UK. Go to https://www.google.com/support/webma...er=62399&hl=en for more information.

[chinabness]

Speed problem

[chinabness]

Speed problem

[Tyler Abernethy]

Originally Posted by Tyler Abernethy

Im not so sure of that, can you prove it?

the .co.uk is all that matters in Google's opinion from what I have experienced.

Originally Posted by affilorama-portal

Since your websites already have country-specific domains ( co.uk ), it is not necessary to move them to servers located in the UK. Go to https://www.google.com/support/webma...er=62399&hl=en for more information.

Tyler Abernethy

[socialbookmark]

I am not really sure but it can differs a little. I heard that its better to host the website in the country you wish to have traffic from. But i am not sure about it and i think it has a very little effect.

[faceblogger]

Most probably NO, as long as the technical conditions don't differ in a big way

[allanswagger]

Hello Friends,

No, it doesn't matter in that sense. What does matter to Google - and more so these days - is the speed of response of your website. You need to be on a fast server, if possible. Some of the free sites no doubt have crowded many websites onto 'virtual' IP's and might therefore be slow. Any HTML errors, syntax errors, errors or slowness in response may cause the Googlebot to pass up your website. You can check the response speed in Google webmaster tools, and even download some tools to measure your response speed.

Thanks

[JosephCosgrave]

Hey mate,
The effect of moving server location is minimal to SEO. You're already using a ccTLD which is more than enough to indicate that you site is country specific.

But...if you want to be super-mega-double sure, you can also set your website to be more geographically specific in google webmaster tools.

Joe

[imuniqseo]

ya its matter if your site have co.uk then it better for ranking in google.co.uk but for google.com then you have use keywoprd rich domain in .com

[venkatesan]

If you want to target your site mainly in U.K then you shift your hosting from US to Uk server. It will give boost in SERP.

[Aandice Austin]

it's improtant for you to move it where your web is hosting, this affects your search rankings I think.

[mrfusion]

It's anyone's guess whether that's good SEO or not. But definitely for sure, a host in the country you target will have less loading time due to physical geographic distance which is good for your users. If they browse with Chrome or have Google toolbar installed or you have GA, you may get a better SEO rank by Google because your load times are faster for most of your visitors.

[The Blueprinter]

If you change your host from US to UK your rankings will be better local. It will not effect your rankings global.

[Fazal Mayar]

Yes it does because you have to make sure your sites will be hosted at a right place so they are always up and you get the most out of them.

[Mike Anthony]

Originally Posted by affilorama-portal

Since your websites already have country-specific domains ( co.uk ), it is not necessary to move them to servers located in the UK. Go to https://www.google.com/support/webma...er=62399&hl=en for more information.

You need to really read that

If no information is entered in Webmaster Tools, we'll continue to make geographic associations largely based on the top-level domain (e.g. .co.uk or .ca) AND the IP address of the webserver from which the context was served.

Which clearly indicates that without taking extra steps in the webmaster tools location In fact IS used as a determining factor. I deal with geo specific SEO regularly and in my experience when your competitor has links from other site in that geo location and domain they rank better in that Google location as well.

[richimarker77]

Is that nobody knows if this is a good SEO or not. But definitely for sure, a crowd in the destination country will have less time to load, due to geographical physical distance is good for users. If browsing with Chrome or Google toolbar installed or is GA, you can get a better ranking in Google SEO, because the load times are faster for most visitors.

[DonBascoX]

I am not sure but may differ slightly. I hear it's better to host the website in the country you want to have traffic. But I am not sure about it and I think it has very little effect.

[craig j]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

You need to really read that

Which clearly indicates that without taking extra steps in the webmaster tools location In fact IS used as a determining factor. I deal with geo specific SEO regularly and in my experience when your competitor has links from other site in that geo location and domain they rank better in that Google location as well.

I was just looking into this and stumbled across this thread...I just took a look at that linked article and it appears to have been updated to exclude the "AND..." part. This seems to make it clear to me that as long as you have a country specific domain it doesn't matter where your server is located with regard to ranking in Google's eyes.

[ibnujusup]

Originally Posted by jacked

It has a slight effect in regional rankings, so if you have your site hosted in Australia, its rankings will be higher in the Australian version of Google. Google.au I think?

Matt Cuts made a video on this.

the link for matt cutt video please jacked?

[ibnujusup]

Originally Posted by alexacc

It is important to select country of you hosting.

please provide solid reference man... we need to know it with a strong reference :-( because based on my experience, all that matter are:

you set your web in Google webmaster tool to UK
get many UK same niche content

refference:
Geotargeting - Webmaster Tools Help

[ibnujusup]

Originally Posted by chinabness

Speed problem

what with the speed problem??? i think its okay if you used a fast css load template like

The Fastest WordPress Theme for Google Search <b>Just got Faster</b> ( no affiliate link whatsoever)

[Targeted Traffic]

does it matter who hosts my web site? Well...the answer to that question is no, but that does not mean that domain hosting is unimportant. Certain factors of the hosting have a big impact on how your site ranks in search results.

With a ton of hosting companies to choose from, the biggest issue you will probably face with domain hosting US and you purchase a domain that is hosted on a server in China, your search engine rankings will more than likely suffer. Geographically, search engine crawlers tend to read your web site as being contradictory to your location. Many search engine results are based on geographical location, so this contradiction could be enough to affect your ranking.