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Search Engine Optimization not only involves content, linking, and traffic, but also the location the website is hosted. People wishing to rank better in various international versions of Google, for example, may do well to ensure they are hosting in the country which they wish to rank in. Recently we discussed some posts at SEW about International Websites with Multiple Domains, as some may remember.
A recent thread at WebMasterWorld Forums has a member asking about switching to UK hosting in order to do better in Google.co.uk rankings. One senior member, Quadrile, immediately points out a fairly popular opinion on this subject, saying
If the site is domain.com, then UK hosting may dramatically improve listings in google.co.uk, without much damage to your google.com placings.
The more important answer to this question, however, comes when a member states that he should
Make sure that the UK Host really is based in the UK and that its IPs are registered as belonging to the UK.Many may simply switch to a UK or another international hosting service and assume that the hosting is provided in the country that it is sold. This is a dangerous assumption, as one member points out who found out that his site was actually hosted in the Netherlands for a while when he thought it was in the UK.
See the rest of the discussion and post your thoughts at WebMasterWorld Forums.
Comments:
Teddie
07/12/2006 01:27 pm
No...It is also a problem the other way around. Where you have lots of sites hosted in the UK and an international or US one on a .com hosted with them in the UK. Google will show a big preference for it in the UK results and it will do much worse in the US ones. Note: Country level assignments are at domain level not page or directory level. .com + /france /uk /spain wont work. .com .net and .org are real problem TLD's if you are outside the US even though they should be completely international.
chris boggs
07/12/2006 01:36 pm
Yes Teddie interesting comment but a little off topic. We are talking about getting listed in the UK Google here, and that with any domain TLD, it may be better to be hosted in the UK. Your point is valid and could be discussed in the forum, I think...would probably make a good thread on it's own.