Local Printing Company Moving to a new IP - Will Our Rankings Change
-
I operate a local print and direct mail company located in Houston called Catdi Printing (www.catdi.com)We do very well with our local rankings and rank 2 or 3 in our main keywords ( Houston Printing , Direct Mail Houston & eddm Houston ) We are looking to upgrade our online quoting and ordering system. The software is very expensive and the only way we can incorporate this new system is to move our site and redirect our domain. The new hosting provider is located in California and might even be hosted by Google but im not certain on this point. Our current host provider is Hostgator and they are based in Houston so im not this provides any benefit.
I guess my main question is will this new change affect our overall regular and local rankings? I would hate to see our positions and ranking fall because of this change.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
CATDI
-
Agree with Daniel - according to John Mueller from Google the location of the server is (almost) irrelevant - it's mainly the performance and the user experience that counts. Quote :'For search, specifically for geotargeting, the server's location plays a very small role, in many cases it's irrelevant'.
I guess it used to be a more important signal but currently is no longer the case - check this article on Webmaster support: "Server location (through the IP address of the server). The server location is often physically near your users and can be a signal about your site’s intended audience. Some websites use distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are hosted in a country with better webserver infrastructure, so it is not a definitive signal."
Google is quite capable of determining based on your content (address, etc) which audience you are targeting so go ahead and move your server to California.
rgds,
Dirk
-
Hi,
Your rankings should't be affected unless your new server has a lower performance. Having your business and your hosting provider in the same city is a nice coincidence but it is not required by any SEO measure
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
-
What Service Page Strategy Should We Use to Target City-Specific Local Intent Service Keywords?
Hey guys! We are targeting a number of cities in the Nassau and Suffolk County areas for foundation repair, insulation, and mold remediation keywords, and we were debating on creating city-specific pages for each location and service, or creating one service page for each type of service that contains all of the services and solutions within that service category for each city. Example: City-Specific Pages for Each Service: One page for say foundation repair, one page for foundation crack repair, one page for foundation problems, etc. (for each target city) Service Category Pages for Each City: One page for foundation contractors that lists all services on one page in sections. Which one do you think is better for local SEO and rankings? Both seem to have their advantages and disadvantages to me. Just to throw a couple out there, the category pages may not rank as high as the city pages for each individual service if our competitors have a whole page designed for that service and we only have a part of a page covering the topic. At the same time, they would save labor hours, technical issues would be less, and they would be condensed, and we would have WAY less mess on the backend. I appreciate your expert opinion on this one. The site is www. zavzaseal.com in case you want to check us out.
Local SEO | | everysecond0 -
How can I make a compelling financial forecast on how SEO will bring tangible value?
Hi all, I am currently doing keywords research and matching it to our sales data. With an input of resources, do you know if there is a good way to create a growth forecast as a result of SEO investment? How do I work out a strategy and align it to a compelling financial forecast? Your experience on this will be super helpful! Many thanks, Eric
Local SEO | | Eric_S1 -
301 redirect from OLDEST site to OLD site to a NEW site. Cons, pros, how?
Local business had a site on domain name - (A) for a 5 years. Few years ago they moved to a new domain - (B) and did 301 redirect from A to B. Now they want to move to another domain containing a keyword - (C+kw).com and apply 301 Question:
Local SEO | | Ryan_V
How to proceed with the redirect for a C+kw not to loose ranking? Which option is better?
1. Redirect from the oldest domain (A) to a newest (C)
A>301>C 2. Redirect from existing domain (B) to a newest (C)
A>301>B
B>301>C 3. Stop existing redirect from A to B, instead do two redirects to a new domain (C)
A stop 301 to B
A>301>C
B>301>C As far as I know under the same conditions a new domain will rank worse than an aged domain. On the other part keyword in domain name helps with local SEO. I think that for the long run it's ok to loose some traffic for a few months but have a better chances to rank in future. What do you think guys?0 -
Keywords not ranking at google.COM, only at google.com.br
I have a website registered with .com.br. And I have noticed that some (not all of them, some are ranking the same way at both "Googles") of its keywords are ranking only when I search at google.com.br, but if I search the same term at google.COM, those pages aren't ranking. What could I do to rank not just at google.com.br, but also at google.com. My chrome, for example, redirects searches automatically for google.com. If this happens with a large number of people, the impact in my website's visits would be very harmful. Please, help me.
Local SEO | | Ricardocpereira0 -
Searchmetrics Google ranking factors study says content gaining while links losing in importance ? Any View About this Post.
I am very Curious about it anyone please update about this http://searchengineland.com/searchmetrics-google-ranking-factors-study-says-content-gaining-links-losing-importance-265431
Local SEO | | MTPixels0 -
Does the physical location of a server effect the local rankings of a site?
I've just been running a report on a site and noticed that while they have a .co.uk domain it is hosted on a server in the United States and just wondered if anyone was aware, if the physical location of a server mattered to search engines for ranking purposes especially with local search?
Local SEO | | ben_dpp0 -
Indexed by Google but only ranking in Bing and Yahoo
I have a website nativeamericanpalmhut.com that has been up and running for months. The sitemap was created and submitted in GWMT and the site was indexed pretty quickly. Here's where I'm lost all of the pages are indexed but only the homepage ranks and only for the exact match domain query "Native American Palm Huts". What's even more confusing is that Google Analytics and HotJar Analytics are both showing hundreds Google organic search traffic coming to the site on multiple pages (not just the homepage). This on top of the fact the that website is ranking well for several different terms in Bing and Yahoo lead me to believe this is a Google search specific problem. I have checked the backlinks to see if maybe there was a penalty on the domain but couldn't find any record of it. I've searched the Moz Q&As, Countless Google forums, etc with no luck. I'm scratching my head at the moment so if anyone has any ideas on what could be causing the problem that would be great.
Local SEO | | White_Shark_Media1 -
National and Local rankings differences
Hi Guys,
Local SEO | | nikaus
I am in Australia and have a client I am working with that ranks quite well for their main keywords.
The business is based in Sydney but delivers Australia wide. The issue is - their main keyword ranks no.1 nationally.
If I set google to any of the main cities and type
Outdoor Mirrors Perth
Outdoor Mirrors Melbourne
Outdoor Mirrors Sydney
My client comes up no.1 But if I leave the city off the end of the keyword and I'm anywhere but Sydney I do not rank well for Outdoor Mirrors. The address of the business is in Sydney hence the no.1 there, but we said in Places that we deliver australia wide. Does anybody know why we don't rank well without the city added to the keyword and a way to remedy this? Thanks Nik0