Does migrating a website hosting location affect SEO?

30 replies
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Does migrating a website hosting location affect SEO?
e.g, For an Australia business website (target audience also Australia), migrating website hosting location from Australia (IP address) to U.S. (IP address).
#affect #hosting #location #migrating #seo #website
  • Profile picture of the author Robin Garner
    The answer is oftentimes yes. In many cases, moving to a new website hosting company will have an impact on your website's SEO success and long-term strategy. These effects will manifest in metric parameters such as organic traffic, lead conversions and brand visibility.
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  • Profile picture of the author Old Molases
    Yes, but that's temporary and everything will bounce back to where it was.
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  • Profile picture of the author digitalstar
    Yes, the Migration of a website affects the speed of loading your website unless you are using a good CDN. Distance matters.
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    • Profile picture of the author krithick
      Originally Posted by digitalstar View Post

      Yes, the Migration of a website affects the speed of loading your website unless you are using a good CDN. Distance matters.
      In our case, when compares our country wise organic search traffic with previous years, there is a significant change in organic search traffic, with a drop in organic visits for the Australia audience, but improving 35.78% organic search traffic in the U.S.


      A drop in organic visits are common when website was hacked and Google re-crawl process.


      But it is not common that improving 35.78% organic search traffic in the U.S.


      So that is why I created this forum thread "Does migrating a website hosting location affect SEO" here.


      Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Devilfish168
    Yes, if you want to target USA than better locate it at USA or near USA.
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  • Profile picture of the author seach4s
    depends on what and who you use as a hosting provider
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    • Profile picture of the author krithick
      Thanks for the reply, seach4s.
      I agree, your point "depends on what and who you use as a hosting provider".

      In our case, website hosting server migrated from Linux server to Windows. The result is our website was hacked and we are using a firewall application now.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    The location does not matter. The performance of the server may make a difference.
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  • Profile picture of the author expmrb
    Originally Posted by krithick View Post

    Does migrating a website hosting location affect SEO?
    e.g, For an Australia business website (target audience also Australia), migrating website hosting location from Australia (IP address) to U.S. (IP address).

    Nope nothing will happen. So, just go for it.
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  • Profile picture of the author seobrad
    25+ years of experience here ... no, changing servers/providers will not matter. Adequate performance is much more important measure.
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    • Profile picture of the author krithick
      Originally Posted by seobrad View Post

      25+ years of experience here ... no, changing servers/providers will not matter. Adequate performance is much more important measure.
      Yes, Adequate performance is much more important measure.
      In our case: IT team is changed hosting server.
      1.In term of Operating system from Linux server to Windows.
      2.In term of Hosting from Dedicated to shared.
      3.In term of Domain server Geo location (IP Address) "from Australia to U.S".
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      • Profile picture of the author seobrad
        Re #1 ... Not a problem with regards to the OS, although I would check the extensions. If the extensions will not change, you are good (i.e. html > htm, or aspx to asp, etc.).

        Re #2 ... Not a problem with regards to dedicated to shared. I have done the same for many clients over the years and no impact.

        Re #3 ... Switching from one country to another is interesting. We tend to host in the primary target country. This is not a hard and fast rule though but something to consider for any geo searches. Many of our clients focus on the market share in the United States, so we tend to stay with providers in the United States.
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  • Profile picture of the author akmasum
    Moving a website hosting location affects SEO only if the server is not properly configured. The issue that needs to be addressed is if the DNS or any other technical issues are not resolved, it can cause the site to be inaccessible for search engines.
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  • Profile picture of the author mattlaclear
    As long as you do not change slugs the only thing you need to worry about is the speed of the server.
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  • Profile picture of the author agrajag
    In general, not much affect on SEO so long as you select a reputable hosting company. Perhaps some speed considerations and server locations.

    We have one client who lost a whole set of websites when their previous hosting company got hit with a ransomware attack, and had an unsatisfactory backup process. Something like that does have a major impact on SEO.

    On the positive side, it finally prompted them to approach us and rebuild their very out-of-date site.
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  • Profile picture of the author incomenow
    Originally Posted by krithick View Post

    Does migrating a website hosting location affect SEO?
    e.g, For an Australia business website (target audience also Australia), migrating website hosting location from Australia (IP address) to U.S. (IP address).
    Before you do the migration, ensure to get a strong Content Delivery Network, and this way you won't have problems with your loading speed or SEO for migrating from one location to another.
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  • If you move your site from targeted audience server to a new location away from targeted audience then response rate you your audience would affect (means speed of the site would load slow to your targeted audience)

    So this slow loading of site would affect your site SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author praetserge
    Hosting won't change much, many use cloudflare or similar any way.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bryan99
    I would say that the change could be negligible in certain cases, especially if you're considering on upgrading your hosting (i.e. from shared to VPS or moving to cloud).
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  • Profile picture of the author ankushkohli
    Yes, migrating web hosting can affect SEO, it depends on your hosting provider. Whether your new host is better than the earlier one or not.
    There are many factors which can affect your website's SEO Like-: Server Location, Server Quality So, while changing the host for your website, you need to look at their speed, Location etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author Eliana Wilson
    Indeed, Switching web HOSTING can influence SEO. There are many elements in changing a web have that can influence your site's SEO. I realize that you are changing your HOSTING to improve your site's performance. So in the wake of being familiar with the point that this can affect your SEO for the next step.
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  • Profile picture of the author DABK
    By default, Google uses the hosting location as the place you want to compete.



    When your hosting in Australia, it shows your site highest in the serps in Australia. You change the hosting to a US location, it will drop Australia and move you up in US.


    You want to host in the US but your clients are in Australia, go to the Google Webmaster Tools, select Australia as the country you want to compete in and Google will ignore the hosting location, show your pages high in Australia.
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  • Profile picture of the author krithick
    Thanks for the reply, DABK.
    Google's official reply to this topic here is the link -
    In summary, changing the location of your website host.
    1. Temporary Impact: will have a temporary impact on crawling.
    2. Impact: It has the potential to adversely impact loading time and impact on SEO when it comes to page experience ranking factor.
    3. Not Impact: This type of change will not impact SEO when it comes to geotargeting.
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    • Profile picture of the author DABK
      I stand corrected.

      Except that in my case, it did not work that way.

      Maybe by temporary he means half a year or longer.

      Originally Posted by krithick View Post

      Thanks for the reply, DABK.
      Google's official reply to this topic here is the link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFFFEOChiJo

      In summary, changing the location of your website host.
      1. Temporary Impact: will have a temporary impact on crawling.
      2. Impact: It has the potential to adversely impact loading time and impact on SEO when it comes to page experience ranking factor.
      3. Not Impact: This type of change will not impact SEO when it comes to geotargeting.
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  • Profile picture of the author wozzaofrare
    I would say yes it does, especially IP
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  • Profile picture of the author Surbhi Chauhan
    Yes, It does affect your website's SEO, But it would be a temporary effect. Everything will get solved in a meantime.
    The first targeting audience in Australia and now in the USA definitely makes difference. Not only you are migrating the location but also you will also ganna change your long-term business strategy that makes some good changes to the website. And this affects a website's SEO strategy too.
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  • Profile picture of the author spartan14
    Well of course it will afect because you will move in competition from australia to usa
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  • Profile picture of the author MaeAee
    oftentimes yes, in many cases, moving to a new website hosting company will have an impact on your website's SEO success and long-term strategy.
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  • Profile picture of the author ki doto
    I really had temporary impact after following the migration guidelines.
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  • Profile picture of the author myresellerhome
    Migrating a website hosting location can be a daunting task. Not only do you have to move all of your website's files, you also have to update your domain's DNS settings and then hope that everything goes smoothly. One question that many people ask is whether or not migrating a website hosting location affects SEO.

    The short answer is: it depends. If you're moving from a server that is located in the United States to one that is located in Europe, for example, your website's ranking may drop because Google will think it is a new website. However, if you're simply moving from one server within the United States to another, your ranking shouldn't be affected at all.

    Also the downtime and quality of the hosting service that you are migrating to play a vital role in your websites SEO.
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