SEO and Changing the host

[MarPlo]

Hi,
Does changing the host too frequently affect the ranking of the web site in search engines.
For example, if i change the hosting company 3 times in 2 months, does it affect the Page Rank? Because it is changing the server location, and also, each time the website cannot be accessed a few hours.

[TechnoBear]

Google's official blog has some advice about changing IP address (near the end of the post). I don't think you have anything to worry about. I've never had a problem changing IPs, although I've never done it as frequently as you're suggest. If you're changing the server location to another country, then you might need to update your geographical preferences in Google Webmaster Tools, to ensure Google knows where your target audience is.

[Stevie D]

Hi,
Does changing the host too frequently affect the ranking of the web site in search engines.
For example, if i change the hosting company 3 times in 2 months, does it affect the Page Rank? Because it is changing the server location, and also, each time the website cannot be accessed a few hours.

Any time your website goes offline for a few hours or more, you can take a bit of a hit in the rankings temporarily, while Google figures out if it's just a blip or if your site has actually gone. The longer and more frequent the downtime, the more you might struggle to maintain a top ranking. I would say that 3 times in 2 months could start to put you in jeopardy – not simply because you're changing the host, that doesn't matter at all – but because if Google keeps getting error messages because it can't find a server then it is likely to consider your site unreliable.

[mdrussell]

Changing the host will have no negative impact on your SEO. Google will even tolerate some small outages without negatively influencing your rankings. With this said, you should be able to transfer between hosting companies with very little or zero downtime. Plenty of hosts offer a free managed transfer too.

Matt

[fcolor]

Well, if you target any specific local market and get the website hosted in a different continent this will increase the latency and would make it less relevant from technical perspective. However the content will stay the same. You might have a drop in the SE ranking.