SEO And Web Hosting Location: What's The Connection?

In case there is a need to change the location of your web host, think twice before you do it as affects your website in more ways than you can imagine. The primary reasons are related to SEO and the search engine listing or rank position, both of which make a whale of a difference. Although the popular belief is that there is little or no effect on a website’s SEO rankings, let’s take a look at several significant effects listed below.

1.       Server Location

"Many sites these days look to alter their web hosting location for natural progression; "Hostpresto.com" is a typical example of a site that has upgraded its services from SAN network to SSD for better efficiency. Does changing your web hosting location affect the all-important SEO?  

The location from where a search originated is very important, and Google has been giving this factor utmost importance from the day it commenced operations. Results are more country-specific and websites located in a particular country would get priority over others in any search. Initially, Google used to rely on TLD or Top Level Domain for this. Recently there is a change in strategy and Google also uses IP addresses to find the exact location of a website. However, whenever you contemplate changing web hosts or the location, take into consideration the location of the servers.

2.        Server quality

Whenever you switch over to a new host one important thing you need to be sure about is the quality of the servers the new host has. When we say quality it is not just the physical features that matter, but also how well the new host is able to manage the servers. Some thrifty hosts tend to take on too many sites at a time and there can be quite a jumble where you can get lost. If you end up on a shared server plan it is going to tell directly on the performance of your site, leading to unwanted complications.

3.        Speed at which your page loads

How often have you been frustrated when the page of a site takes ages to load? Imagine how a harried user would feel when he or she finds that your page simply won’t load fast enough. Moreover, Google takes into account the speed at which a page loads while ranking. Even a 2-second delay in page loading can lead to your page rank dropping drastically. As long as you are not on a shoe-string budget, it is strongly advisable to not go for a shared server, where the crowd is too large for your liking. If you don’t have any budget constraints, consider going for any Linux VPS hosting, including the SSD Linux VPS which can perform a lot better than any shared ones.

4.       Hosting Plans can change

Did you realize that when you switch over to a new host the hosting plan will also change? This change will certainly affect your site’s affinity to SEO, more so if you downgrade for reasons of your own. Hosting plans are always directly linked to the performance of a website. Conversely, if you plan to upgrade to a better hosting plan, your site will certainly have a positive effect.

 5.        Downtime

Another important factor is downtime. Changing site locations can burden you with downtime unless executed properly. This happens typically whenever the site waits for DNS to propagate, and the downtime can often run from 24 to 72 hours, which a business can ill-afford. This is going to directly affect your page ranking, and one way to circumvent this is to hold on to your old host till things get smooth with the new host. Wait till the DNS is properly propagated and that would be the end of all your worries.

6.        Changes in website structure

Changes in website structure also lead to problems with Google and other popular search engines like Bing and Yahoo. You would probably have changed your Content Management System as well, and reconfigured the structure of your site. Google does not realize this and will view you as an all new site and consider you from that perspective as far as SEO is concerned. Hence, take enough time while deciding to move your site to a new host.

On the whole, change being inevitable, you need to look at the brighter side of things while planning to change the location of your web host. Following the above tips will certainly help you to avoid the negative effects and ensure your site attains better ranking.