I don't think the choice of hosting country makes that much difference. Part of the key lies in where your most likely search audience lives, but the more significant factor is the uniqueness of what your website offers and how well it outranks the competition (and by outranking I mean the SERP position rather than the
PR).
There's never been any clear explanation, as far as I know, as to whether, for example, a .ca domain instead of a .com one is more advantageous for a site that has a Canadian street address. In fact, although most of my contacts come from Ontario or some other province, I reckon the majority of them find me with my .com URL, even though my host is not far from my doorstep and, if anything, I turn up less favourably in Google.ca than in Google .com
It's one more mystery that only the Google Gods can shed light upon -- and, as we all (should) know, they ain't tellin'.
Duncan
