Hosting

[cashexplosives]

Hi All

Does the google algor still favor a web host in the country that you are targeting? I've seen conflicting reports.

[DanHorvat]

Yes.

[sweetbet]

I use GWT to specify which country I want to target.

GWT > Search Traffic > International Targeting > Country > Target users in ...

[thebookiesoffers]

supposedly but seen many examples of it not mattering, some with my own sites

[xecutable]

I think I matters and it matters a lot. It was 2012 when I decided to go from US hosting to UK hosting, like right after Euro 2012 I recall and the ranking difference was oh wow. I don't really know what happened but at that time, that's the only change I did and the difference in places all across the board was enormous.

That being said, faster opening site to the country you have targeted is always a plus to your user experience, so why not?

[DanHorvat]

There are four elements to this.

The most important is loading speed. It does take some skill to make the site load fast and even more to make it load fast across the planet. Server location helps - but given a choice I'd use a fast(er) server located outside the country than a slow(er) in the country. I personally use Amsterdam and London for most Europe-facing sites and it's good enough.

Incidentally, my main .co.uk site is hosted in France. Go figure.

The second ranking factor is what you put in Google Webmaster Tools as your target country.

The third is your domain - whether it's a cTLD or not. Google gives preference to local sites on local markets.

The fourth ranking factor, and I'd consider it the weakest signal of the four, is the server location. It does matter, but I'd say you can go around this if you achieve better loading times and better responsiveness and therefore user experience with a server that isn't located in the country of the target market.

To conclude, I'd say you should choose the fastest server on the continent of your target market, make sure you got the caching right, choose a target market in GWT and have a country TLD. The main purpose is to achieve better user experience, which in turn is a ranking signal in itself (how long the visitors stay on the site, bounce rate, etc.)

Does anyone have anything to add? If I'm wrong with any of the above I'd really like to be corrected asap.

[wonderpunter]

Content for me denotes my traffic... I write soccer I get tons of UK, Euro, African and Asia Traffic.. US sports.. US, Canadian and Aussie traffic.. I also run a CDN so that might be a big reason why i tend to rank in various countries

[Christiaan]

This is a difficult matter. Some people will say it does, some will say it doesn't. Loading speed is very important. If the server is in the same country it will probably be faster, but not always. In my opinion it was important in the past but not anymore. Just try to find the hosting with the best loading speed.