Is It Beneficial to Host my Site in my Own Country

[watto]

My Australian targeted website Businesses for Sale - Buy or Sell Australian Business for Sale is hosted in the US. Would I see an improvement in the serps if I hosted my site in Australia?

Thanks

Watto

[Webnauts]

If you did your homework properly, there is no problem with your site being hosted in the U.S or elsewhere.
What homework? I guess others here might have the time to explain.

[Duncan Pollock]

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

[watto]

webnauts, I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'homework'? I didn't make reference to that in this thread??

Watto

[naz]

Hi Watto
I have a number of Australian lifestyle sites than rank #1 for their topics and all are hosted in the US. So in my experience where you are hosted doesn't affect ranking.
Naz

[watto]

Thanks for the tip Naz. Would you be interested in exchanging links? I have been targeting Australian sites lately.

I look forward to your reply.

Regards

watto

[Webnauts]

webnauts, I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'homework'? I didn't make reference to that in this thread??

Watto

On-page and off-page Geo targeting techniques?

[subhzash]

Hosting not at all matter. Only mater is how good your in your industry

[inertia]

Youve got a .com.au so you should be right. It might be a little different if you had a .com.

[davidweb]

The country specific domains like .com.au/.co.uk receive ranking benefits in their respective countries like Australia, and UK.

It is upto you to decide whether your business is confined to Australia or worldwide ( maybe after 1-2 years).

Your immediate SEO efforts will help you gain quick rankings on Google.com.au ( since you have a .com.au domain). However if your target is worldwide, then having a .com domain would be a better choice, but there are no fixed rules.

Even a .com.au or .co.uk domain can capture top rankings on Google.com ( US or worldwide) depending upon variety of SEO factors.

On the other hand if you own a .com domain, then having a country specific hosting/I.P Address can help your website to gain higher rankings within Australia (ninemsn.com.au Yahoo!7 google.com.au).

You can read similar case studies at : Google Geographic Targeting » SEO HAWK