Does having a host located in a different country than the location of the website/website's audience affects SEO?

[IrinaIoana]

For example if the website is example.ro and the hosting would be on Amazon Web Services.

Thanks for your help!

[IrinaIoana]

Thanks for your answer, Silviu.

[IrinaIoana]

Thanks for your answer, Dan.

[IrinaIoana]

Thanks for your answer, Jordan - will make sure to give Google that information via ccTLD or Search Console.

[badgergravling]

As Jordan said, it's definitely not a big factor compared to the big signals. It does seem to have a minimal effect with everything else being relatively equal, so if it's a fairly easy thing to implement it certainly doesn't hurt though.

Don't forget to set your audience target in Search Console as well....

[Silviu]

No. You won't have any problem SEO wise, but be very careful on the website speed and time loading. That could make some type of tehnical problems, by making the website slower and having server errors. Otherwise no problems at all

[JordanLowry]

According to a post from seo round table a Google rep said this is almost irrelevant. However, there are a host of other ranking factors that come into play for international SEO. Keep hreflang tags, ccTLDs, and content in mind when developing your international strategy and you should be fine.