Rob_F

Is it still worth paying more for UK hosting? I heard recently that the location of the server no longer matters from a SEO perspective, is this true?

Thanks,
Rob

Edwin

I believe as long as the domain for the site is a .co.uk, you can host anywhere in the world and it will still be considered a UK-related site from the search engines' point of view. I've always proceeded on that basis, anyway.

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foz

I would stick to the host location matching the ccTLD, if a Global audience co-locate to each market segment.

Regardless of SEO, fast websites create an appealing user experience.

TinkyWinky

Depends entirely on who you use - we host with Rackspace in the US and on some of our sites the load time is equal to sites we host with UK companies like UKFast and Fasthosts. This is for .co.uk domains.

There's lots of factors - not least the network/router setups and pipeline the hoster users and also how the DNS is set up either with the hoster or with your Domain registrar if you are using their DNS forwarding - in my experience this can have a dramatic effect - like a 0.5 second delay effect....

Just because you are in the UK, doesn't mean shortest path is used to your host - least resistance might be the best way of thinking about it from physics back at school - often traceroutes from Scotland to servers in London goes out over atlantic and back... it's milliseconds extra for the distance and you won't notice it.

Ultimately website load can also be dependent on the browser - IE7 is sh&te at loading complex pages with javascript quickly whereas in my experience the Javascript processing by FireFox is much much quicker for the same page.

Lots of factors - but the main one for us was choosing a hoster with 99.99% uptime and SLA's and a big company that wasn't going to disappear overnight.

You get what you pay for most times.

TW

spondishy

If you search in google using the show uk sites only option my US based .co.uk's appear so that would say to me google doesn't care.

Do the same in bing and they disappear.

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TinkyWinky

Really? All my .co.uk's appear in all combinations.... for G and Bing

spondishy

Maybe it's just a glitch with my site. Definitely the case though. UK only search and site disappears for the main keyword.

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retired_member13

Mine appear in Google, Yahoo and Bing, whether set to UK or generally.

They are co.uk sites hosted with Hostgator in the US.

Interestingly though, as a test when I launched the co.uk sites I set up a UK service on an exact match keyword .org (not .org.uk) also hosted in the US.

I targeted the .org as a UK service in Webmaster tools (In late July 2009), but other than the extension there is no difference in site structure, SEO style, anything at all really.

The result?? >> This site has failed to rank anywhere, on any engines for any terms, which I continue to find interesting. I'm thinking of moving the domain to my UK host just to see what happens.

My next experiment is with a me.uk.

foz

Agree with the networking and routing comments.

If you wished to take consideration on the business side, the host location for your website(s) can form domicile location(s) for tax purposes.

golddiggerguy

You are logged out of Google when searching ?

Google places your sites on page one as it knows you go to them/ own them etc and places them on pages higher than normal.

Log out and you might see them disappear a mistake a lot of people I know do LOL


GDG

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