Does hosting matter in SEO?

[Domain Marvelous]

I was going through the SEO Bible and came upon this paragraph:

Does hosting matter?
That question comes up frequently when a company or individual is designing a web site. Does it
matter who hosts your site? The answer is no, but that’s not to say that domain hosting is unimportant.
Elements of the hosting have a major impact on how your site ranks in search results.
One of the biggest issues that you’ll face with domain hosting is the location of your hosting company.
If you’re in the United States and you purchase a domain that is hosted on a server in England,
your search engine rankings will suffer. Geographically, search engine crawlers will read your site as
being contradictory to your location. Because many search engines serve up results with some element
of geographical location included, this contradiction could be enough to affect your ranking.

I am confused

Does it mean that having the web host and domain registrar in different countries affect your SERP?

Or is it seen from a different perspective as below...
If I, from Fiji, host my domain on a USA server, how will the SE spiders know that the owner is from Fiji. Obviously, it does not have my who.is information, since I use Who.is Guard on my domain.

I assume that the above was a myth that has been shelved long ago. What are your opinions on the above? Is it a myth?

[tsdesigns]

Well, google has a geographical targeting feature in their webmaster tools, you can use that to set a website's target country to be Fiji. Not sure about other SE's.

But it shouldn't have too much of a big impact on the SE results anyway.

[allout]

Tsdesigns gave a great answer. If you do not set the target country, they will go by the IP location which in your case would be the United States. In your case, unless the site is targeted to your country, I would not change things. Chances are your largest market will come for the United States anyway.

As far as the domain registrar, that would not matter.

[Domain Marvelous]

I guess the original article was wrong is saying that hosting will affect SERP ranking. Here is an explanation by Google:
Geotargeting - Webmaster Help Center

[shahab6]

it doesn't matter where you're Host is hosted, but the down time of it does matter

[Domain Marvelous]

it doesn't matter where you're Host is hosted, but the down time of it does matter

Yes, I think hosting location mattered in the early days of SEO. Its now more of the uptimes and speed of the host that is taken into consideration than the location.

[juliya]

Hosting is an important part of search engine optimisation, and should be the first thing you should look at when optimising your website.

Following are the tips when looking for Hosting:
1. Location of your Hosting
If you are looking to mainly target the UK then I suggest you get your website hosted in the UK. Google does give preference in the UK search results for sites hosted in the UK. If your site is a .com hosted in the US chances are you won’t appear in the UK search results. To combat this you should change to UK hosting.

2. Get a unique IP address
I would say it is a good idea to ensure your site has its own IP address. You don’t want your site to share IP addresses with porn and gambling sites as this could lead to Google considering your site to be in a bad neighbourhood. If your site receives lots of traffic you should consider getting a dedicated server, this would ensure this doesn’t happen and will speed up the site.

3. Use an Apache server for .htaccess
Google is still indexing websites using both the www address and the non www address, and Apache servers offer the simplest way to fix this by editing the .htaccess file. This file can also be used to change your unfriendly URLs to friendly URLs which will help your long tail listings in Google.

Regards

[Bompa]

"Does it matter who hosts your site? The answer is no, but that’s not to say that domain hosting is unimportant. Elements of the hosting have a major impact on how your site ranks in search results."

Wow! Very poorly written. That says it does not matter and it has a major impact. duh

Here's the deal. If you are marketing to the whole world, do NOT have a country specific TLD (top level domain extension).

If you are marketing to a specific country, get a domain name in that country.

Ignore all other advice.

As you can see from that "bible" people that consider themselves experts have a tendency to rave and rant, on and on, so much so that they contradict themselves in every paragraph.

Bompa

[juliya]

Any business owner using shopping carts and making online sales has special needs. They require plenty of resources, secure servers and preferably an IP address dedicated solely to their usage. In most cases, a shared host does not offer private SSL certificates to its customers. Instead, a shared SSL is usually offered. A dedicated IP allows you to utilize a bulletproof SSL certificate to ensure the integrity and security of your online transactions, something that is absolutely critical in e-commerce.

After all, Unique Customers Pose Unique Requirements

[Mikeantony]

"Does it matter who hosts your site? The answer is no, but that’s not to say that domain hosting is unimportant. Elements of the hosting have a major impact on how your site ranks in search results."

Wow! Very poorly written. That says it does not matter and it has a major impact. duh

Here's the deal. If you are marketing to the whole world, do NOT have a country specific TLD (top level domain extension).

If you are marketing to a specific country, get a domain name in that country.

Ignore all other advice.

As you can see from that "bible" people that consider themselves experts have a tendency to rave and rant, on and on, so much so that they contradict themselves in every paragraph.

Bompa

Yes you are right. This is the things which will help to choose the domain for the country wise business. At that time this things affect about the Hosting.

[shakir]

it doesn't matter where you're Host is hosted, but the down time of it does matter

Yh he said it SE doesnt matter hosted place companuy IP etc.. except performance.. uptime, bandwidth( fast browsing)

[budhi1976]

this is confusing... anyway guess the only way to verify this is by checking those who host their website not in the country of their target market, whether they are having trouble to be in SERP, yes?

[Jon Tiffany]

With so many people around the world using servers based in the US I reckon that Google has found a solution to this - and they have, you can set your location in webmaster tools.

I use a UK company for hosting, but their servers are in the US.

The quality of your hosting is more important than location, if your site is down or slow to load then you have problems!

[Steve]

they try to put everything in the box it suppose to be. That's why you have google.com.br , google.cn etc. So this type of analyzing will fall in the wrong box. that's why they tell you not to submit your site to other countries since your geo is wrong. so hosting and domain are in different countries , then it could affect it but who knows for sure.

[liquidgraph]

Actual host brand does NOT matter. What does matter is site load speed (hence host speed and reliability) and the length for which you register the domain. A 10 year domain registration gives you a slight boost because you're telling Google, "Hey! I'm a serious website, not spam."

[Autumn]

Actual host brand does NOT matter. What does matter is site load speed (hence host speed and reliability) and the length for which you register the domain. A 10 year domain registration gives you a slight boost because you're telling Google, "Hey! I'm a serious website, not spam."

Are you suggesting the google bot takes time out to check who is records to see how long a domain is registered for? :sshocked::stongue:

[brandmantra]

domain name ext is playing a great role in local marketing. keywords in domain name play the vital role for keywords rankings.

But the funny thing would be a .com.au domain is targeting .co.uk in geographical targeting feature in their webmaster tools.

[tack]

you pointed out a good point. my opinion is , it is not so important about your domain and hosting features. the content about your site and the targeting visitor is important. and also at your domain name server you are using your hosting company IP address that's why hosting is getting 1st or most priority for your site and I think domain only gets more priority when you TLD means your country. I like .us, .asia etc etc

[Jon Tiffany]

Lots of people believe that the length of time the domain is registered for is an SEO factor. I'm not so sure myself, if it is a factor I dont believe it makes much difference.

[janicejan]

now it's getting really confusing..

[budhi1976]

I am afraid I have to disagree about it. I have a couple of domains registered since 3 years ago (just kept them because haven't got a time to build the websites for them) now if I search in google mydomain.com then it's nowhere to be found don't even bother to search the keywords it related to....

So I believe it's the content that all matter.

Cheers,

Lots of people believe that the length of time the domain is registered for is an SEO factor.

[Gabri]

Well, domain age is important, more important than the time left for your domain to expire.
Hosting is also a factor for SEO. I have seen big differences in a Spanish site i have. It was on a USA VPS and i moved it to a Spanish VPS. I made a good choice and SERPS improved a lot.
Everything i say is based on my experience.

[EricStan]

you will notice how much web hosting matters for a website after 2-3 days of having your website offline :slaugh:

[zeruel]

I believe it is important. It should also be considered before you optimize a website.

Checkout Matt Cutts post about Virtual Hosts vs Dedicated IP Addresses.

[PromoJunkie]

The only thing i have ever noticed with hosting is that if your site is on the same ip/server of a large site it tends to automatically get spidered... new or not.

--Thanks!

[Hostco]

Old domain without any content is like a empty box, no one would ever look into it, rather if you have unique keyword rich content build around such old domain you may get better traffic for it.

[numaga]

I don't think it matters but i'm not sure

[collinsturner]

Of course, it does matter. Host your sites with different companies, so that you can link them and google will love your site

[weblytallar]

There is a lot that SEO Web host and Several C Category IP Web host can do. Simple reality is that when it comes to understanding how one can get the most of what they need, SEO Web host will confirm to the be the purpose why it can perform efficiently in a bid to arrive at the top.