What impact does server location have on rankings?

[ZelenoJabko]

Well. Here in Slovenia, we do mostly order hostings and VPSes in Germany, because they are a lot cheaper. Guess not good for SEO.

[bepenfriends]

This is not a good way Google. You are forcing us to have multiple servers in multiple location (thus increasing cost).

[tobto1]

Location 1.02. Location do matters.

[floopy312]

It doesn't make sense...

So if I live in Venezuela and have a website here, I just can't use a foreign hosting provider from the USA (which are better) because it will affect my regional ranking?? That doesn't make sense at all.

I don't trust any hosting provider in my country. Why can't I just use a US hosting provider without affecting my ranking?!

Doesn't make sense....

[jeffreymcneill]

This is why TLDs are so important. Server location is a mediocre signal at best and Google is just guessing. But if you have a country code TLD or you home to the country using GWT, those are clear signals.

[skepticalinquier]

I am sick of producing decent videos and getting alousy 30 hits in the entire life time.

[hz2xc]

Yes, but Google also say that server speed or website speed is also a ranking factor, so if you have a server in the geo location you are targeting, your target will access your site faster, therefore even if the ip address of your server wasn't a factor, it implicitly becomes one due to speed differences.

[RemixPicture]

This sucks balls. If I have a hostin account which allows me to host unlimited domains with them, then why should I buy another hosting account just to rank better in the targeted country? It makes NO sence at all since most people do not buy a hosting account depending on it's geo location. People buys hosting accounts that fitst their price range and their websites content.

[crawfs76]

Seems silly as I chose an Australian Hosting company for my .com.au site, but little did I know that they were an affiliate of an American company so technically the server is based in the US? Why should server location really matter!!

[AlexanderNewcomb]

If I build website as big as facebook, well not that big but kind of close to that size what servers would be appropriate to have or should I say how big?

[Alexeixx3]

This is the worst way to decide whereter or not a website is important for a user. I think most of the servers are located in the US, no matter if the site is from a mexican business

[anxieanxie]

If I have a fr site but host it in the US, will this affect me differently if I rehost in France, that is the real question. People are moving their hosting based on the belief that it does, it is very annoying and the question deserves a much better response than this.

[anxieanxie]

I don't believe that this answers the real question at all, it is a very light and obvious example.

[RandomAnimations27]

What if a site is run by Americans, but the server is located in another country?

[anxieanxie]

@RandomAnimations27 I manage many hosting accounts for clients in 5 countries, I host them all in a reliable centre in the US. None of these are based in the US. This is not at all rare in my experience.

[SEOtoolJockey]

@anxieanxie except if your a German for example, you would have put all your international clients websites on German servers... how does that make them a website born and bred inside of Italy for Italians? Stop being lazy cheap, and you'll see a nice difference in the way Google treats your clients websites in their respective countries.

[anxieanxie]

@SEOtoolJockey Not sure what your point is here... am I being Lazy and cheap by sticking with a reliable provider in the US? If my client is based in Milan for example, a datacentre in Munich, Monaco or Zurich etc are all physically closer 2 me than one in Rome. My point is why does Google want my Italian site 2 be based in Italy when my client base could be from a wider catchment area, or the services might be more suitable in another country, or simply closer to me?

[ShaneSelby]

Using google webmaster tools you can specify locations for sub domains, or folders for a domain, so you can have different ones for different countries if you want. There is a google video about geotargeting.

[bjrodge]

There should be meta tags to tell Google how to determine if this is in the searchers best interest. If someone is searching for something where shipping costs or physical pickup is an issue (for example), then this is a good thing. For online stores and marketers of e-courses (for example), who deliver there product/service 'virtually' this does not provide searchers with the best results. So in the case of digital delivery products/services, both parties, buyer and seller are penalized

[Vassilevsky]

It's logical. If I want to use a website, I would prefer using the one that is closest to me. The shoter is the cable from me to the server, the faster it works!

[Afreekdusoet]

This is terrible.  So don't host outside your target audience's country or risk negatively affecting the pagerank??

I know the target audience can be set using the webmaster, but what if the target audience is a certain region, say europe or southern africa?

[SEOtoolJockey]

@Afreekdusoet its not a negative pagerank thing, he said rankings not pagerank. Its a relevancy thing. People in their own country get a bonus for searches done in their own country. How is this hard to understand!

[speleding]

I run a site that is really not location constrained and useful to anyone who speaks English. Where should I put my server to get the best ranking? My guess US would be the largest English speaking area but I am very happy with the service I have now, outside the US (in the Netherlands). Is it worth the move?

[andthenhesaid]

All my sites are targeted at the UK because that's where I am. My hosting is in Florida because a friend in DC recommended the company. It's stayed there because they give fantastic service - problems solved in minutes of raising a support ticket. But this suggests I ought to move to UK hosting to maximise ranking. Doesn't sound ideal to me.

[simarprit]

This is logical Matt, but my concern is that it puts pressure for some sites which are based out of US but have very local content, which is being updated on the fly or gather UGC from specific geographies

[LoonArg]

I think that is good, but you are not thinking about us, who live in countries without a good hosting service, and we need to host in USA some non-english content...

But on the other hand, if you need to get visits from a country in special, and your hosting is not there, I dont personally recommend to change hosting, I do prefer to use Webmaster Tools from Google to enhance country oriented thing

[chempranav]

my server is in US but my content is India oriented... :(

my site is not listed in when I search for "India page only"

can I find solution for this?

thanks

[larssonk22]

Rob from reading the other viewers comments you may need to talk a little bit more about this issue. Some people pick servers on pricing aswell, sometimes cheaper to buy outside your own country.

[mrcakey]

Always suspected this. Sadly the answer is not good for me - my server's in Germany (1&1) and site is in England. I rank well enough anyway, but it's interesting to note I might be ranking better if I went with a local server.

[madmad5000]

me descover fire :)

Very useful Thanks!

[tattoos01]

I have a site and have sub directories for each language. EG /.. (English) /ge/.. (Deutsch) /fr/.. (Français) /jp/.. (Japanese) I decided to go with a host in the US because of reputation and price, not because I wanted to target that particular Country. I'm unsure how much weight is given to the IP in the ranking, as my site gets 47.94% traffic from Japan, and 9.69% from the US. I guess more emphasis is placed on the language of the text rather than IP. Thanks for clearing this up Cheers.

[Winger4u]

Clear answer but please Google keep in mind there are people that are targeting for example Germany and have a server of blog etc. running in the United States or another country combination... Server location does not say a lot really.. :) Thanks for answer though...

[Conceptskatemedia]

really good point!

[alexmoba]

I agree, I live in Costa Rica and my server is in the USA, however I blog in Spanish

[marawan009]

i totally agree , i can understand that google search shows different results depending on where u r searching from but having page ranking depending on where the server is located is not so relevant!

[devildavey]

Maybe Google should return results relevant to the contents language? I.E en-gb for Britain, en-us for USA and fr for France and so on. Just a suggestion.

[anxieanxie]

I am sorry for the multiple posts, it won't let me type in my full response!

[SEOtoolJockey]

@Winger4u when you index the internet like Google Does you'll find out quickly that it means a hole lot to those who have websites hosted inside of the county and who own a country specific domain TLD like deutschland.de for example.

Matt just told you what you needed to do so its a matter of just doing it. Work with the system and you'll get a lot more Google Traffic love from searches done on Google.de. So go get a German Hosting company and a German TLD.