Does server location impact SEO

[Quidsite]

Does the location where your hosting provider hosts your website matter in regards to SEO?

[Quidsite]

Does the location where your hosting provider hosts your website matter in regards to SEO?

So in short , if my target traffic is the UK, is it better to have the server in the UK?

[TechnoBear]

Hi Quidsite and welcome to SitePoint.

There was a discussion on this subject fairly recently, in this thread. See if that helps.

[Stevie D]

As the bear says, we've had a recent discussion on that. In a nutshell, it can help to have your server in the same country/region as your primary target audience, but that isn't a deal-breaker – it's still possible to rank well even with a 'foreign' host, it just takes a little bit more work/luck.

[Quidsite]

Thanks.

[carlhenson]

It does.

If your TLD is com and your site targets UK. Google will check where your server is located and rank you base on that. If Google sees that you have a UK IP and you have a TLD of co.uk, generally it will rank you more on Google UK rather than on Google US.

[worldsystemperu]

I think the TLD and SLD must be on the specific country and industry wise. it will helps to increasing your ranking in search engines.

[Cheska]

It does have a substantial influence on search engine results. This combined with your domain name suffix (.com, .co.uk, etc), can determine which geographical version of Google your results will best appear in. If you have a generic .com, .org or so on domain that is not country specific like a .co.uk, the server location will be used to determine the location of the website’s business.

[TechnoBear]

If you'd read the other thread, you'd know that you can set your geographical preferences in Google Webmaster Tools. So you could have a .com and a server in the US, and Google would still know your site was targeted at the UK (or wherever) and rank it accordingly.

Anyway, Quidsite has read the other thread and found it helpful, so I'm closing this one.