Does your choice of host have an effect on your SEO and rankings?
Feb 2, 2010
In a word; yes, but don’t worry there are a few simple rules and if you get stuck, there is a fix to get your SEO back on track.
Problems can be thrown up when users anywhere outside of the USA need to be found on their local version of Google.
As an example, to rank well on Google UK it is best practice to satisfy at least one of the following criteria:
- Be hosted on a UK IP address.
- Use a uk top level domain (TLD).
So if you have a .com or .net you will need to be hosted on a UK IP block. It is not just enough to use a UK host as sone of them aren’t all they seem.
1and1.co.uk for instance host their sites in Germany, so unless you have the UK TLD, you could be in trouble.
Google will normally manage to sort out the correct local version is correct, however, it can take time and it depends on things outside of the direct control of the webmaster or site owner. Therefore it has to remain best practice to ensure your host is actually hosting in the UK by using one of the online IP to location tools like the one available at http://www.ip2location.com/. Check the IP address of the name servers and a hosted site.
If you fall foul of geolocation problems, the best fix for this is to either move the site to a UK IP block or - second choice fix – to use Google’s Webmaster Central to set the geographic target audience.
A further factor to take into account is site speed. Google’s new update to the ranking algorithm known as the Caffeine update takes site speed into account as one of the many ranking factors so check a few sites hosted with your prospective host and run a few speed tests.
The last thing to consider is whether the hosting is shared or dedicated. For most users – me included – shared hosting is fine, however, there have been occasional problems when an IP address is shared with a known spammer or is subject to a denial of service attack. These are rare though, but it would be remiss of me not to mention it.
Related Blogs
- Soccer Practice – Sure-fire Tips To Be Flexible
- Get A Quick Coffee Fix
- Changed transfer procedure with SIDN
- Switch SIDN will take a little more time
- Madrid To Host MTV Music Awards
- Singletrack World » World First! SRAM X-7 Goes Ten Speed
- 8 Common CSS Mistakes and How to Fix Them – Pxleyes.com Blog
- Tracy Morgan Returns As Host Of SyFy's “Scare Tactics”
- Paula Abdul “Star Search” Host
- American Idol Season 9 Eliminated PredictionTags: <a href="http …
- Medicare doc fix questions and answers | KevinMD.com
- Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 0-Day Vulnerability Fix-It
- 6 Tips for Site Search Reporting: Things to Look For in Site …
- Facebook Surpasses Google As Number One U.S. Site
- Facebook Launches New Page To Promote On Site Sports Offerings
- Fastest site on the Web: The IRS? | VentureBeat
- Ah, Calpella: Acer Site Leaks Ultraportable Notebook Specs Before …
- Google Makes Exchanging Microsoft Exchange For Google Apps A Bit …
- Hitwise says Facebook Most Popular U.S. Site
- American Idol: Paula Abdul To Host Star Search | Reality TV Magazine
Similar Posts:
Comments: 2
2 comments
shirley
Jun 23, 2010
06:08:15
Like your blog! I am looking for a good uk wordpress host and heart internet seems to have good value! Keep it up
Admin
Jun 23, 2010
08:11:49
I used to use heart Internet for WordPress hosting and although they were good at first and reasonably priced, I found that for anything other than the simplest blogs they were very slow. I mean VERY slow.
A couple of my WordPress sites were stalling for 15 seconds before loading the homepage and the bounce rate went up to nearly 100%.
I now host all of my WordPress sites with Clook. Check them out – take this as a recommendation.
Leave a Comment