Local country search rankings - Where should I host?

[mv5869]

Probably not the best place to ask this, but as you are such an experienced lot and a jolly nice bunch of people I thought someone could help with my question.

My situation is that I currently run several small websites, inc some that are Wordpress blogs. They are all targeted at the UK, and they are .co.uk domains. However the hosting is in the US because I got a cheap deal a few years ago and never bothered moving them.

My questions:
- Will the fact that the sites are hosted in the US affect my rankings in the local country (ie UK) search?
- In general, has anyone got any knowledge around what affects search position for country search (e.g the .co.uk domain extension, the IP of the host etc)?
- Can anyone recommend a reliable, fast and cheap UK host that I can move 10 or so hosted domains to? Just interested in your personal experience. Personally, in the UK I use Easily and find them great – but too expensive as they charge per domain and I have lots.

[s3solutions]

Probably not the best place to ask this, but as you are such an experienced lot and a jolly nice bunch of people I thought someone could help with my question.

My situation is that I currently run several small websites, inc some that are Wordpress blogs. They are all targeted at the UK, and they are .co.uk domains. However the hosting is in the US because I got a cheap deal a few years ago and never bothered moving them.

My questions:
- Will the fact that the sites are hosted in the US affect my rankings in the local country (ie UK) search?
- In general, has anyone got any knowledge around what affects search position for country search (e.g the .co.uk domain extension, the IP of the host etc)?
- Can anyone recommend a reliable, fast and cheap UK host that I can move 10 or so hosted domains to? Just interested in your personal experience. Personally, in the UK I use Easily and find them great – but too expensive as they charge per domain and I have lots.

Hi mv5869,

Just share with you something that I got.

- Will the fact that the sites are hosted in the US affect my rankings in the local country (ie UK) search? <<< I think hosting in US will not affect your website's ranking in local search, because I have one site hosted in US but it's good ranking in local search with some targeted keywords but..

- In general, has anyone got any knowledge around what affects search position for country search (e.g the .co.uk domain extension, the IP of the host etc)?<<< ...one thing I experienced from hosting outside of my country is that the number of indexed pages of your website in local will be more than the global's one. That means the numbers of keywords will be different from each others, and the result if it will affect your rankings for some keywords.

- Can anyone recommend a reliable, fast and cheap UK host that I can move 10 or so hosted domains to? Just interested in your personal experience. Personally, in the UK I use Easily and find them great – but too expensive as they charge per domain and I have lots. <<< Sorry, I am living outside UK

Hope it will help a bit.

[ClickyB]

Probably not the best place to ask this, but as you are such an experienced lot and a jolly nice bunch of people I thought someone could help with my question.

My situation is that I currently run several small websites, inc some that are Wordpress blogs. They are all targeted at the UK, and they are .co.uk domains. However the hosting is in the US because I got a cheap deal a few years ago and never bothered moving them.

My questions:
- Will the fact that the sites are hosted in the US affect my rankings in the local country (ie UK) search?
- In general, has anyone got any knowledge around what affects search position for country search (e.g the .co.uk domain extension, the IP of the host etc)?
- Can anyone recommend a reliable, fast and cheap UK host that I can move 10 or so hosted domains to? Just interested in your personal experience. Personally, in the UK I use Easily and find them great – but too expensive as they charge per domain and I have lots.

1. It may have some effect but can be overcome with a good backlink strategy (eg: uk sites/directories) in my experience - a link in the "regional" section of dmoz helps a lot.
2. There are lots of threads about it here... domain extension, geo-indications from within the site, hosting location, backlink profile, geo-preferences in Google Webmaster Tools etc
3. Nope - lol - there are no decent low-cost hosts in the UK (although wiserhosting are more reasonable than most)... I too host the majority of my sites in the US, with only a few UK servers for clients who can afford the rates

[Steve_gts]

1. If possible I would move them to UK hosts, anything you can do to help should be done, but also tag them as UK sites in Google webmaster tools, that may help too.

2. not entierly sure, but my uk sites all show up higher for uk searches than global ones, not sure if thats to do with location or just the fact there is more competition globally.

3. Unfortunately cheap may not be good, don't forget speed is now part of Googles algo' some of it you control, but some is down to the hosting too.

[WhiteHatSEOMktg]

This is an authoritative document on regional considerations for Google http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html

I have used this company for several years and have had no problems. I tend to use a UK based domain for emails but I did have a very low traffic info site on the domain and wasn't aware of any problem.

http://ukwebsolutionsdirect.co.uk/

I also have never found anything bad to say about http://pickaweb.co.uk/

[Steve_gts]

Because WhiteHatSEOMktg gave me a red rep for not backing up my last comment about page speed, I have added a link below which confirms it.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html

To be honest I thought this was general knowledge anyway, Google have been banging on about it for months now, that's why I didn't back it up with a link.

[mv5869]

Because WhiteHatSEOMktg gave me a red rep for not backing up my last comment about page speed, I have added a link below which confirms it.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html

To be honest I thought this was general knowledge anyway, Google have been banging on about it for months now, that's why I didn't back it up with a link.

Yes. I fully agree. And anyway WhiteHat seems to be banned now so hopefully a bit less bullying going on here with the reps.

Speed is important. So is TLD. I dont believe hosting location has any effect on local rankings at all any more. You can set the target country in Google Webmaster tools, but the TLD seems to be far more important anyway.

[courier]

I have the same situation in Australia with US hosting. My us hosting ranks about the same as my aussie hosts.

Any dot coms hosted in the USA I make sure I have at least visited the google webmaster tools and directed to down under

[Canal IP]

Although to have the hosting in the country where you want to position (UK in your case) it is ideal, don’t get obsess with this! It's just a recommendation... there are other issues that can help you and which are most important:

Domain extension
Geo-preferences in Google Webmaster Tools
Back links from UK websites
Your information in Google Places for Business.