SEO and Hosting

October 31, 2007

As part of my daily routine at Just Search I analyze websites to discover what on-page work they require to perform in the search engines. The first thing I always check is the hosting attributes of the site which can be discovered through the Netcraft toolbar, this first test is where many websites fail.

What you need to remember is that search engine optimisation actually starts before your site goes live! One of the first things you need to choose carefully is the hosting company you use, and the features they provide.

So how can hosting effect your SEO efforts?

If there are multiple domains located on the same server, this may indicate to search engines that these domains belong to the same company. Google could think that these sites are linking together artificially hence trying to influence the search results, which can result in a drop in listings.

The most common issue I find with hosting is the location of the hosting company. Many companies simply find the best or cheapest hosting available wherever they might be located. Although this has no effect on the actual website, search engines such as Google use the hosting location to provide more relevant results based on the searchers location.

For example a website hosted in the UK will be more relevant for a Google UK search for “Manchester offices” than a website hosted in Germany.

Other useful questions to think about before choosing a hosting company are:

  • Language Support (ASP, PHP etc)
  • Database Support
  • Can 301 redirects be set up
  • What control interface is provided
  • Are custom 404 error pages provided
  • Plus many more

In Conclusion,

Aim to host your website in the same country as most of your searches will be coming from.

Paul
SEO Programmer

  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Netvouz
  • DZone
  • ThisNext
  • Wists
  • Furl
  • Spurl
  • Technorati
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Ma.gnolia
  • Reddit
  • Simpy
  • StumbleUpon
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1 Comment

  1. Paul - I’ve just moved away from 1&1 for this reason as their servers are based in Germany. I moved to Fasthosts but have since discovered there are some security issues shall we say. Who would you recommend?

    Commentbymark December 4, 2007 @ 6:05 pm

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