A Cre8asite Forums discussion pointed me over to a UK hosting company named UKFast that has a white paper on Server Speed and SEO.
The paper makes the argument that server speed is a critical component to your SEO campaign. Here are some quotes from the white paper:
Website response speed helps search engines to assess the site’s relevance because speed is one of the criteria recognised in a successful site.If a more powerful, faster server is used, the site loads more quickly and is rewarded by being moved higher in a the search engines’s displayed results.
Server speed is intrinsically linked to search engine optimisation.
If a server operates at a higher speed the business is more likely to be noticed by search engines. This is because Google, which is the world’s favourite search engine, offers rewards for businesses that provide excellent customer service.
Additionally, a fast server means spiders and robots find it easier to trawl a website. This means your website is indexed on a more regular basis and updated more frequently by search engines.
Technically, a really slow server can really hurt your rankings in many search engines. But can a super fast server improve your Google rankings? I don't think so. It might let Googlebot spider more of your pages quicker, but even that seems like a bit of a stretch to me.
You see, what they claim is half-true. If you have a really slow server, it can have a negative impact on your rankings. But having a super fast server, as opposed to a fast server, won't increase your rankings. I.e. A super fast site won't rank higher than a fast site, if all else is equal. At least as far as I know.
Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums.
