Does Google take into account the place where the server is hosted to rank the pages.
-
Does Google take into account the place where the server is hosted to rank the pages.
What I mean is, if I have a server in USA and I am working for the Spain marketplace: Will Google rank better my pages for this market if the server were hosted in Spain?
-
Hi Norberto,
The IP location it's a signal although it used to be stronger in the past and having a US IP won't interfere on ranking in Spain, for example. Now Google has additional and stronger signals: like the use of a ccTLD or geolocating in Google Webmaster Tools, plus specifying the region also in the hreflang annotations and your content itself: adding the location where it's targeted to in the different elements of the pages.
Of course, if you can invest on hiring a hosting service with an IP in the location where you're targeted and won't suppose a too high investment for you, do it (it will likely impact positively on the site speed, for example), but as also happens with other factors and signals in SEO, is that the benefits you get should surpass the cost of the changes you'll do.
Thanks!
-
This same question was presented a few days ago. The answers provided in that thread may be helpful: http://www.seomoz.org/q/does-server-location-affect-rankings-2
-
Years ago it used to be a factor, now Google understands you might be hosting in the USA because of better services so location is no longer a major part of the equation like it used to be.
-
Yes, among other elements, the location of your IP does impact the SERPs if you're using a gTLD (.com, .net, .org, etc.) for your website, but you can also set your domain geolocation using Google's Webmaster Tools.
Read on:
What impact does server location have on rankings?
Working with multi-regional websites (Point #3 - Geotargeting factors)
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How do hreflang attributes affect ranking?
We have a site in English. We are considering translating the site into Dutch. If we use a hreflang attribute does that mean we have to create a duplicate page in Dutch for each English page, or does Google auto-translate? How would duplicate pages, even if they are in a different language, affect ranking?
International SEO | | Substance-create0 -
My indexed site URL removed from google search without get any message or Manual Actions??
On Agust 2 or 3.. I'm not sure about the exact date...
International SEO | | newwaves
The main URL of my website https://new-waves.net/ had been completely removed from Google search results! without getting any messages or Manual Actions on search console ?? but I'm still can find some of my site subpages in search results and on Google local maps results when I tried to check it on google
info:new-waves.net >> no results
site:new-waves.net >> only now I can see the main URL in results because I had submitted it again and again to google but it might be deleted again today or tomorrow as that happen before last few days
100% of all ranked keywords >> my site URL new-waves.net had been completely removed from all results! but I'm still can see it on maps on some results My site was ranked number 1 on google search results for "digital marketing qatar" and some other keywords, but the main URL had been removed from 100% of all search results. but you can still see it on the map only. I just tried to submit it again to Google and to index it through google search console tool but still not get any results, Can any one help to know what is the reason?? and how can I solve this issue without losing my previous ranked keywords? Can I submit a direct message to google support or customer service to know the reason or get help on this issue? Thanks & Regards0 -
Will hreflang with a language and region allow Google to show the page to all users of that language regardless of region?
I'm launching translations on a website with the first translation being Brazilian Portuguese. If I use the following hreflang: If a user is outside of Brazil and has their browser language set to just Portuguese (Not Portuguese (Brazil)) will Google still serve them the Portuguese version of my pages in search results?
International SEO | | Brando160 -
Redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO
Hi, I have two questions. Question 1: is it worthwhile to redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO? For example, my company's webpage is www.example.com. Would it make sense to redirect (301) the main site to address www.example.com/service-one-in-certain-city ? I am asking this as I have learned that it is important for SEO to have keywords in the URL, and I was thinking that we could do this and include the most important keywords to the subfolder / specific URL. What are the pros and cons of this? Should I create folders or pages just the sake of keywords? Question 2: Most companies have their main URL shown as www.example.com when you access their domain. However, some multi-language sites show e.g. www.example.com/en or www.example.com/en/main when you type the domain to your web browser to access the site. I understand that this is a common practice to use subdomains or folders to separate different language versions. My question is regarding subfolders. Is it better to have only the subfolder shown (www.example.com/en) or should I also include the specific page's URL after the subfolder with keywords (www.example.com/en/main or www.example.com/en/service-one-in-certain-city)? I don't really understand why some companies show only the subfolder of a specific language page and some the page's URL after the subfolder. Thanks in advance, Sam
International SEO | | Awaraman1 -
Changing server location for a global targetted site
Hi, I am just in the process of purchasing a site from someone. The site has a global target audience (well global English speaking anyway). The site is on a .info domain and is currently hosted in Germany. Checking on SemRush it looks like 70% of traffic comes from English speaking countries (US, Australia, Canada, UK). Now I need to move the hosting to one of my own when I change ownership of the site. Now does it overly matter where I choose my hosting as currently it is hosted in Germany (around 4% of visitors from Germany) but I want to do my best not to knock any rankings but I was thinking of moving it to a UK or US based host but still want to keep a general worldwide userbase. As the US accounts for the largest part of traffic (39%) would I be best choosing hosting based over in the US or does it not overly matter too much (I am in the UK so most hosting I use is UK based). I have read a number of posts on server location but most seem to be for site which have a country specific target audience. Thanks for your help! 🙂
International SEO | | Wardy0 -
Multi-Country Hosting
Hi all
International SEO | | yousayjump
I have read a few post that are similar to mine on this forum but still wanted to ask my specific question. We have a .com domain hosted on a dedicated server in the UK for our main website which takes online bookings and payments. We have purchased the following TLD's of our domain name:
.it, .es, .ch, .fr, .es, .at We essentially want to create a satellite site on each domain where the idea is that users in those countries will find our satellite sites via organic search engine results when searching for the information we sell. Due to the nature of our infrastructure, each satellite site will connect to the mysql database on the UK site to drawn down its text content. This is where the main CMS is located. I understand the following are important from an SEO point of view for our satellite sites: Hosting in the country we wish to target
Geographical targeting via WMT
Local addresses and telephone numbers on the site
Correct lang=" " tag in the source code
Content presented in the correct language (goes without saying really) Can you advise on any other considerations? Many Thanks Kris0 -
Hosting accounts
Hi folks, I would appreciate your thoughts on this. So, I work with a company who is based in Canada. I work in the US branch. There is little or no trouble for the website ranking well in Canada due to the lack of competition. That said, it is a bit more challenging here in the US due to extreme competition. My Question: Does having the site hosted in Canada make it any more difficult for the site to rank well in the US? As always, thanks so much. I love this place!!!
International SEO | | APICDA0 -
Very fluctuating rankings
For a couple of years we're doing internet marketing for a local car rental company in Holland that operates at Amsterdam Airport and competes with players like Herz, Europcar, Avis, ... We started with SEO, SEA & Remarketing. With an overall conversion rate of 13% the results are pretty good, and our client is happy 🙂 Whieee End 2011 we started with an evaluation of the efforts we did last year(s) and to come to new insights to work on in 2012. The SEA & remarketing campaings have a (very) possitive ROI, and they give us lots of insights where we should focus on doing SEO. We identified longtail keywords with a high search volume but when monitoring these keywords in SEOmoz we see they are fluctuating. Some keywords gain ranking positions in google.nl but lose positions in google.com and vica versa. That's pretty frustrating, because we want to rank good in both 🙂 I was wondering what's the best practice for these longtails... Do we make specific landingspages that focus on these longtails, or do we focus on linkbuilding getting links with longtail anchor texts to the homepage of the website? An example: last week we rose 14 positions for a keyword in google.nl but for the same keyword we dropped 4 places in google.com (while .com is much more interesting for our client) Any suggestions are welcome!!
International SEO | | nvs.nim1