Does Web Hosting affect SEO Rankings ?

Hi,

I have many .co.uk web sites hosted on UK server, now I am planning to shift all those sites to Web hosting company in India. Will this affect my Search Engine Ranking in Google.co.uk. My sites are doing very good in Google.co.uk.

Is there anything like co.uk sites hosted UK server ranks well than those sites hosted on India Server.

Regards,
Vandana

Google uses Geographic target based on domain names. They automatically switch the target if it is like .co.uk, .co.br or .in.

Now since you are not switching the domain, so technically the ranking shouldn't go down.

But if your users are from UK, then you should keep hosting server in UK itself such that your users will get more speed rather than keeping your server in India

Hi,
You have asked a good question.
I think No .. there is no relation between hosting and ranking except the browsing speed.

It can have some effects but links are definitely more important. For example, having links from co.uk domains pointing at your website is more important than merely shifting your hosting account.

I really think that YES First of all speed of server Second IP But this is only what I think

if you move to an ip that has more domains on it then google will pick that up and it could lower rankings. for example, on a dedicated server your site would be the only domain linked to the server's ip. If you move to cramped shared hosting where there could perhaps be 20 or more domains on one ip then it's could do something. problem is there is no easy way to know how many sites are going to be hosted on the new server.

@Bozebo

are you sure with whatever you said?

You think Google generate ranks looking at the ips?

If that's so, then the current ip range is not enough to support all the sites.

and truly speaking Google checks the availability of the sites!

It's not based on the ips, that is just one of the small factors. Think about it, if a domain links to an ip and no other domain links to that ip then that ip is most likely one server dedicated to that one site. If there are many different domains linking to one ip then it appears to be lower quality, shared hosting - and that makes many believe that the site is not as valuable a resource for whatever it's main content might be because the owners are not committed to pay for high quality hosting.
I am not sure if it is anything more than a theory though, but I've heard it somewhere before.

well yes maybe you are correct, theoretically it does make sense

but practically it doesn't make any (as far as I think)

because as i said the current ip-range is not enough for all the sites.

If Google is doing that, then i should say they are not considering it practically.

But think of this, you can buy ips for SSL. In that case, how will Google understand that if the site is in dedicated hosting or shared hosting?

Hey there,

In my opinion, web hosting CAN affect rankings but not necessarily.

It depends how good the hosting is. What the uptime is like?

Google likes sites that are up 100 percent of the time.

Switching to a dedicated server should increase uptime. There are a lot less people on them to screw things up

Sincerely,
Travis walters

Its a fact that google indexes IP address, but they normally only use them to determine backlink diversity, by comparing c class IPs and the links that come from them.

In other words if a site has 100s of links with the same anchor text all coming from the same C class IP those links aren't as much of an indicator as links that come from IPs that have more diverse links.

In your case, I think, the hosting change would affect your rankings. Then again I think Google is not that dumb so as to think in itself that a website only uses the hosting service of some company within country. Anybody can use any country's hosting service if they think the hosting service is better than any host in their country.

So, The hosting change may not affect your serps (Eek, I just contradicted myself)

No I dont think so. Only think we should keep in mind that site should not be down

I found this discussion thread interesting. It did alter from a request for information about geographic location of the server to the number of IPs on the server. As in all cases for SEO and rankings one element remains true as we all try to jockey for the top spot: The most pure sites have a better shot at a higher ranking everything else being equal. So, with that said:

1. I would think an IP within the geographic location of your target audience is better than one outside that location.
2. That the number of URLs on one IP has an effect on your ranking.
3. If one URL on that IP is on the blacklist then it can also negatively affect your ranking (I have read this from reputable sources and seen it in action).
4. It is true that links from the same C class can have an effect on your rnaking. I thought it was links from 10 IPs but a colleague told me he read through a google.com guru that it was as low as six. If you plan on building your own link farm to boost rankings it could be counterproductive.

I do have a question that I would appreciate some comment. Does anyone have any evidence that a site hosted and registered on google.com have any bearing on the rankings?

maybe a little affect, 1% or 5%, but small-beer.