Web Hosting and SEO

[freelancerguy]

I have heard website download speed is a SEO ranking factor. My main web audience is in US. Will hosting in the UK or Canada slow down download speeds sufficiently to impact ranking in the US?

So, should I choose a web hosting provider in US for better SEO?

 

[Mark007]

Yes, obviously. If your business is related to United States then it is best to get your hosting from the local web hosts for a matching IP address in the location. This will help browsers know your business location and also help in local seo for your website. It will contribute for traffic generation and also build your local ranking.

 

[PTTed]

I have heard website download speed is a SEO ranking factor. My main web audience is in US. Will hosting in the UK or Canada slow down download speeds sufficiently to impact ranking in the US?

So, should I choose a web hosting provider in US for better SEO?

Yes Google says that page load speeds are a factor. But how much of a factor?

In 2010 Google admitted that site speeds were only a factor in about 1% of searches and that site speed doesn't carry as much weight in ranking as other factors. Matt Cutts says it is a really small factor. Relevance is your primary ranking factor.

Google is much more interested in relevancy, trust and authority than it is interested in page load speeds. The only time they really care about page load speeds is if your page takes a long time to load for the average user.

In my experience page load speeds are a non-factor at all unless your page loads ridiculously slow. If the pages are loading quickly on the host you are currently using, then you should be just fine. Don't over think page speed too much.

Your domain name matters a lot for ranking. If you want to rank in the UK then get a .UK domain. If you want to rank in Canada then get a .CA domain. If you want to rank in the USA then get a .COM .ORG or .NET domain.

As far as other SEO reasons for server hosting locations:
Here is an article about it - Google says Server location mostly irrelevant for SEO.
But Matt Cutts says yes it does matter.
And depending on where else you look, some people say it does matter and some say it doesn't.

I have personally not tested this because I only work on sites targeting the United States primarily and those sites are all hosted here also.

I guess if you wanted to be on the safe side, then yes you should host in the country that you are targeting.

 

[RDO Servers]

I have heard website download speed is a SEO ranking factor. My main web audience is in US. Will hosting in the UK or Canada slow down download speeds sufficiently to impact ranking in the US?
So, should I choose a web hosting provider in US for better SEO?

The reason server location matters, is because the farther the server is from the person viewing the web page, the longer it takes for data to transfer back and forth. This transmission time is know as Latency.

Some people think this means you need a server in your same city, or state at least. The truth is, with a quality host, on a quality network, this does not make as much difference as some think.

Latency from the East coast to Europe or even Sydney, is around 200 milliseconds or less. Are you going to notice this difference? Are your customers? Is Google going to care about this small difference? I really doubt it!

Yes, obviously. If your business is related to United States then it is best to get your hosting from the local web hosts for a matching IP address in the location. This will help browsers know your business location and also help in local seo for your website. It will contribute for traffic generation and also build your local ranking.

This is really bad advice IMO.

If your website takes 10+ seconds to load, yes, you may see decreased rankings because of it. However, having your server located in a different country from your customers is not going to make it take 10 second to load your site (again, as long as your with a quality host, on a quality network).

Mark, how does your server location generate traffic?

Local Rankings depend on way more then server location. Internet Marketing Star is highly ranked in Google and receives a lot of traffic from all over the world. Do you think this required a server in each country?

FreelancerGuy,

Do you see a problem with your website loading speed? If so, do some speed tests and find out the cause of the slow speed. If it is not because of cross-continent latency, then spending your money on another hosting plan will be a waste of money.

It is too easy to get caught up in the myths of what will help your rankings and obsess over things like page speed. (I've done it too!!)

Build a quality site. Market it well. Use only white hat SEO. Post quality content.
These are the most important things to focus on.

 

[ElixantTechnology]

Location doesn't matter much, as stated it is only 1% of your SEO score and is nothing to concern yourself with unless you are running an intranet for your business or applications that require the best speeds... But traditionally, for your website, it's not much of a concern. Look at it this way, 99.999% of the websites that you view on the internet are nowhere near you, yet you can still access them just fine and 99% of the time extremely quickly. A lot of these websites are even hosted overseas. Like others have mentioned, a couple milliseconds of difference really does not matter.

Be sure to select a web host that is of good reputation with email and IP status. Don't go with a bad reputation host such as Hostgator or even any provider out of HVH. There are many providers out there, I recommend checking out the offers section of this forum.

Additionally, hosting does not make much of a difference for SEO, in fact SEO hosting is just a myth and will only give you a bad reputation.

 

[ulterios]

Download speeds are a ranking factor but unless your site loads extremely slow it's not going to make a huge difference in SEO and your rankings. If you shave a tenth of a second off you site's load times, don't expect to see any kind of help. If you shave a few seconds off, then you should get some small boost.

Always try to have a server somewhat close to your target audience, then use a CDN like CloudFlare and that wiil help with serving your content to locations that are father away, faster. Kind of a best of both worlds thing.

 

[KeralMTG]

I have heard website download speed is a SEO ranking factor. My main web audience is in US. Will hosting in the UK or Canada slow down download speeds sufficiently to impact ranking in the US?

So, should I choose a web hosting provider in US for better SEO?

Yes the speed of your site can affect the seo for it. I saw that google says it is only a small factor as long as it is not real slow but faster is always better and even if it is only a little help. A little is more than nothing.

 

[Maria Marketing]

This is one of the things that I was looking into. Many people think that google and the other search sites will start to use the speed of the website more and more for their rankings in the future. Based on that then I would say that getting a fast hosting service will start to give a better and better SEO improvement over time, so go fast now!

 

[gaurav2020]

Yes, obviously. If your business is related to United States then it is best to get your hosting from the local web hosts for a matching IP address in the location.

 

[Argus]

Yes, obviously. If your business is related to United States then it is best to get your hosting from the local web hosts for a matching IP address in the location.

Hello, how can I tell if the IP is matching the location? Is this something that the hosting company shows to customers?

 

[vishwa]

Website speed is really a great factor. Users don't like slow websites. You may buy hosting according to your requirements. For example if the you want to target audience only from USA than Buy a hosting from USA will be beneficial for you. It will increase your local SEO factors.

 

[Argus]

Website speed is really a great factor. Users don't like slow websites. You may buy hosting according to your requirements. For example if the you want to target audience only from USA than Buy a hosting from USA will be beneficial for you. It will increase your local SEO factors.

What do you do when your visitors will come from everywhere or if you do not know? Maybe Europe so it is in the middle?