Web Hosting Location Affects SEO
In the digital world when searching for where to host your website there are several relevant factors to consider.
In this article, we will discuss how the web hosting location affects SEO and what can you do about it. For example, you found a perfect web host company for your WordPress site located miles away from your country. Would you consider it?
It is no secret that most businesses often use the least expensive hosting provider based in another country. As long as their business grows they pursue that option with no doubts.
And yet, many of them continue to wonder whether the quality of web hosting location affects their SEO and if it’s relevant while determining the adequate SEO strategy.
We know how important are your website’s hosting speed, location, and good hosting provider with link-building results.
What does server location mean for SEO hosting
When searching for the same term on Google in different international locations, you may find different results. Similarly, when customers search for your company, they will find different results depending on their location.
However, this does not have to concern you and your search engine rankings. Regardless of the keyword, you can still rank high in search engines with a website hosted anywhere else in the world.
A good web host with good WordPress hosting provider services and customer support is always recommended for peace of mind. The SEO web hosting providers that help improve page speed are an asset.
The first step is to set your preference in the Google Webmaster Tools which merely provides a new perspective on how to improve your overall website performance.
For example, your company targets users at a particular geographic location. It is possible to use the “International Targeting” option from Google Webmaster Tools to inform Google about the desired location.
Web hosting location can affect SEO in a few ways
- Geographic targeting: Search engines such as Google consider the geographic relevance of the website. When displaying search results Google or other search engines will favor the site that is using quality web hosting that is closer to the target audience. The location can be highly beneficial for a website’s rankings.
- Server speed: No matter which website builder your site is crafted with, the website must perform well. Website performance can impact the amount the time visitors (target audience) are willing to spend on the site. If the server is located far away from the target audience, the website loading speed (performance) may be negatively impacted. The site may take longer to load which may lower the search engine rankings.
- Legal requirements: Legal aspects are strictly related to the type of business you are in. Hosting the website in a specific jurisdiction may be necessary to comply with legal requirements. If the website is holding the personal data it must follow legal guidelines specific to the country the website is hosted in.
- International SEO: If you are looking to focus and target multiple countries around the world you can consider having your website hosted on server locations in each target country. How can this help? Well, it can enhance your website’s visibility as well as performance. Search engines will likely consider the particular cloud hosting location associated with specific country searches.
What is the best SEO web hosting
Other than the hosting location, there are other more important factors to focus on when considering various WordPress hosting provider options or managed WordPress hosts.
One of them is related to SEO web hosting performances. You should look for a stable, reliable, and fast cloud hosting provider that will not negatively affect Google or search engine rankings.
Additionally, when it comes to hosting providers, there is a difference between older websites and those built recently. Having a new or newly updated WordPress site platform will allow robots to review the website faster.
Search engine optimization and website building are web hosting relations that are known to help websites perform better.
Since Google delivers relevant search results fast, you should be aware of whether your website is running slowly or often crashes.
However, this might not be related to SEO hosting providers but rather to data on the web page on your WordPress hosting site.
Properly managed WordPress hosting is an important factor in choosing good shared WordPress hosting providers. If you have multiple websites, perhaps the best solution would be a cloud hosting package that involves a dedicated server for WordPress from most VPS hosting providers.
Several web host factors significantly impact web hosting for SEO. For example:
- Geo-targeting: Geo-targeting is important for websites that are targeting specific geographical locations. A hosting provider that is located within your country or region may help with the SEO as it will likely associate your site with that particular location and rank it higher in search engines. Looking to rank in Google USA results? Go with the USA server location. In terms of IP address, better to avoid the same IP address for multiple websites as this may hurt SEO rankings.
- User experience: In terms of web hosting for SEO and your WP engine or WordPress website, search engines like Google are considering user experience as a ranking factor so if your site is easy to navigate and intuitive, your site ranking will improve.
- Website loading speed: If the server location is closer to your target audience the website will load faster. Better website performance can improve your SEO ranking.
Hosting providers: Shared hosting or dedicated hosting plans
When it comes to choosing the SEO hosting provider that will benefit your website and your online business visibility, there are two options to choose from. It all depends on the specific needs of your website, target audience, and number of searches. Here are some key VPS hosting of most hosting providers points to consider.
Does shared hosting affect SEO?
- Shared Hosting
– Small to medium-sized websites: Shared hosting for SEO is suitable for smaller or medium-sized websites that generally are informative only (blogs or similar). The traffic on these websites is moderate and these sites don’t require a robust SEO hosting provider.
– Cost-effective: Shared hosting for SEO includes multiple websites on a single server location which makes it more affordable than a dedicated host provider. But keep in mind to avoid cheap web hosting for SEO and choose the high-ranked good SEO web host.
– Maintenance: A managed WordPress hosting provider usually manages and maintains the server, performing general or security updates which allows you to have peace of mind when it comes to hosting provider and hosting features for your WordPress site health. It’s also very important to have good customer support assisting with hosting queries and any issues that may arise.
– Limited: with shared hosting features, your website performance may be affected if there is high traffic or resource usage. - Dedicated Hosting
– High-traffic websites: A dedicated hosting provider is generally recommended for larger websites with large files and with high traffic. For example, it is suitable for e-commerce platforms, such as e-commerce stores.
– Expensive: this type of website host and hosting company is higher than shared hosting due to the robust management requirements and extensive use of the same server resources. Whether a dedicated or shared website host should not impact the search engine results page and your site’s ranking.
– Dedicated: this type of server provides you with a virtual private server and managed WordPress host. It also includes quality customer support for any help related to hosting WordPress websites.
– Enhanced performance: Resources are dedicated only to your website which means that the website loading speed will be intact.
The importance of a free SSL certificate
The SSL certificate or Secure Sockets Layer is a digital certificate providing a secure connection between a web server location and a web browser.
An SSL certificate generally ensures all the data shared between the server and the browser is 100% private and protected from any unauthorized access.
How to obtain an SSL certificate? Website owners or WordPress hosts have to purchase one from a trusted certificate authority or use the certificate provided by a hosting provider. For the site to have a secure HTTPS the chargeable or in some instances, free SSL certificate must be properly installed and professionally configured.
Below are the SSL certificate key points:
- Security: Once the SSL certificate is professionally installed on the website builder it changes the website’s URL from “http://” to “https://”. The letter “s” stands for “secure” and it indicates that the website can be trusted and is secured.
- Authentication: This generally means that the free SSL certificates verify the identity of the website which is extremely important for users as it ensures the website is legit.
- Encryption: Since SSL certificates use encryption algorithms to encrypt the data transmitted between a website visitor’s browser and the web server locations this ensures the private information is fully protected.
- SEO: SSL certificates are very important for SEO as search engines (Google or others) give preference to secure websites in search rankings. Having an SSL certificate can positively impact your website’s SEO performance.
Best SEO web hosting providers
When it comes to web hosting providers and their performance, value for many, and SEO hosting features, our research helped narrow down to the four hosting companies below:
- DreamHost
DreamHost is home to more than 1.5 million websites. Some of the advantages are fast and secure websites, reasonable prices, and clear terms. If you are not 100% satisfied with their service, these guys will compensate you. It’s also a great option for WordPress hosting and is recommended by WordPress. The VPS hosting installation to the WordPress site is extremely easy and quick and only one click will get it installed to the WP site. Customer support is available 24/7 and you will be communicating with a real person in real time. - Hostinger
Hostinger offers various packages at reasonable prices. For example, shared hosting plans start at $1.99 USD per month which is a great deal, especially for people not sure how complex their website will be. This plan allows 10,000 website visitors per month. As you grow, the plan can easily be upgraded. Hostinger states (according to information from their website) that their server response time is 43 milliseconds. We haven’t done any tests on this, but this number is excellent. - Bluehost
Bluehost is one of the most popular hosting companies in the world. They also offer various marketing tools, analytics, and SEO tools to track how well your website is ranking for specific keywords which helps you also with determining the best keywords for your website-building strategy. Bluehost SEO hosting provider is very safe for anyone looking to build their website with WordPress. Bluehost offers reasonable prices at a lower cost of only $9.99 USD per month. - Webhostphyton
Webhostphyton is your best partner when it comes to website security, performance, value for money, and exceptional customer support. Their agents are available 24/7 and will ensure to respond to your ticket promptly. Webhostpython owns and operates all hardware used for the best SEO web hosting services, resulting in exceptional web hosting services unrivaled in the industry. They provide different SEO hosting packages depending on your website’s requirements.
Web hosting affects SEO, but it’s not the primary factor
When it comes to the accessibility of your website, great results are the most important. For example, if your website often crashes due to a bad web hosting service, Google’s web crawler (robots) will record the inaccessibility and move to the next site.
This quality hosting, may affect your ranking position in the search engine, and flag your page as unreliable. And of course, your goal should be to avoid this from happening.
Additionally, make sure to pick a chosen hosting provider or dedicated servers depending on your website requirements. Always go with the best web hosting provider with a positive reputation and exceptional performance.
Since your developers have given so much effort to building your website, this would be a small, but significant step in achieving better rankings in search engines. Google will recognize the SEO efforts, as well as your customers.
We learned that server locations can play a significant role in SEO web hosting provider, however, it’s not the only factor. The quality and uniqueness of your content, backlinks strategy, and user engagement are all critical for SEO web hosting and site performance.
When building a proper SEO strategy, keep in mind the hosting location as one of the important aspects for the online success of your website-building business.
Always remember the best way to achieve better rankings in search engines is to develop a robust and comprehensive SEO strategy and plan.
A good SEO hosting plan is an efficient way to help customers reach out to you, which can have a significant return on investment.
Your priority in developing the best web hosting for SEO as well as SEO strategy should be partnering with the top agency that is highly skilled in this area.
If you wish to have the best web hosting for SEO and a reliable SEO web hosting provider, get in touch with our expert team today!
For more info on how your hosting space affects SEO, get in touch with us! Also, if you are interested in local search engine optimization, please read more here: Why NAP Consistency is Crucial for Local SEO.
