Physical Location Of Server & Search Results

[chandrika]

Does the physical location of where a sites server is have any effect on where Google etc may prefer to show your results. If a site that got alot of US traffic, was moved from a US server to a server physically located in the UK, is it a possibility that some of the US traffic could be lost?

Or is the only location based results served by the SE, based around the domain extension such as .co.uk .com etc?

[Webnauts]

We moved already our site form Germany to a server in the U.S and in a very short time our rankings and traffic in the U.S improved dramatically.
We experienced some loss in the German local results though. But we were not concerned about that.

If someone disagrees with me here, I am not willing to go into a debate about this, as this is my experience, and it is a fact.

One factor is that local results are based around the domain extension.

Another factor is the origin countries of your IBLs.

[chandrika]

Thankyou Webnauts, I remember from along time back reading that it mattered, but my host provider is pushing me towards a UK server and telling me it makes no difference, but I am sure I read that it did and it would make sense that it did, and as you have experienced this first hand, well it just goes to show.

[billmarshall]

You should always host in the same country that is your principle market. If that is the US then host in the US. Remember that a .com address contains no geographical information so with Google and MSN they look at the hosting country next.

The worst cases are non US countries using .com addresses and hosting in a different country to their own - a UK-based .com which is hosted in Germany will get virtually no rankings in the UK-only results on Google and MSN (Yahoo has other methods and seems to be able to identify the target market rather better).

I've no direct experience of the reverse situation but I would certainly expect that Google would start to assume you were a UK facing company and you might suffer some drops in the US listings.

By coincidence I just blogged on this topic the other day
Importance of good hosting for search results

[kgun]

The best solution is perhaps to use both a dot.com and .co.uk domain where the first is hosted in the USA and the second in UK.

Related WPW threads:

Google UK results diverge

Does G treat .de and .com the same

Trying to work out foreign googles

Matt Cutts:

More SEO Answers on Video

If you need more, try:

"host location" site:www dot webmasterworld dot com 37 Hits.

[incrediblehelp]

Yes if your target is the UK, then hosting and using a co.uk TLD is necessary to compete. more from Google Webmaster Central:

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Server location, cross-linking, and Web 2.0 technology thoughts

[hostBrain]

What Webnauts said

If a site that got alot of US traffic, was moved from a US server to a server physically located in the UK, is it a possibility that some of the US traffic could be lost?

Yes, you will lose some us traffic

[nashville]

What about where an IP address is?

[incrediblehelp]

What about where an IP address is?

Sure that makes a difference as stated above.

[hostBrain]

What about where an IP address is?

Yep, that's server location. And it matters when it comes to country-specific searches