Can geographic location of web server affect in SEO?

[MayurChavda]

I have server in Singapore. I need to target USA and Europe for my site. Whether I need to change server? Please guide me... Can geographic location of web server affect in SEO? If Yes, how it affect in SEO?

[blacey]

I'm not 100% sure on this myself but personally I think it would be a good idea to have your website hosted on a server in the location you're targeting.

I would suggest you write / change the content of your site to target the different audience. EG, if you're targeting France for example it might be worth mentioning "France" in the content and have it hosted on a French server.

Same with USA, make sure the content is different for each location your targeting to avoid cross site duplication of content.

FYI Matt Cutts covered this question on his youtube channel but this was back in 2009 and a lot has changed since then. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXt23AXlJJU

[Vivamedia]

Hi!

See the answers in this thread: http://www.seomoz.org/q/does-server-location-impact-seo

See this video with Matt Cutts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXt23AXlJJU (What impact does server location have on rankings?)

Hope this will help you!

[blacey]

Both the thread and the link you mentioned both go to the same video Tommy, and it was first published in 2009.

After doing some more digging I think I am correct in saying location affects search results, certainly now that Google Places + Local search has been added to Google earlier this year.

I would also say that having the country code in your TLD (top level domain eg: .co.uk, .fr, .de etc) can be a big factor for SEO rankings. It may impact the search engine ranking of your site depending on the geographical location of the person doing the search.

For example, lets say you have a website called: “www.websitedeveloper.co.uk”. It’s ranking  for the key term “freelance website developer” and that in part would be based on the location of the searcher and whether he or she is using different Google country-based search engines (using google.co.uk, google.fr etc)

For brand protection and geo-targeting strategies I would recommend implementing a permanent 301 redirect for your different domains. For example, I would buy “websitedeveloper.fr” and have it redirected to my main website called “websitedeveloper.co.uk”.

[stubby]

I believe that what Matt Cutts says is still true, that the location of your server can impact your SEO.

[gfiorelli1]

The correct answer is: yes, but is it not a major factor.

You can find more insights here: Working with multi-regional sites, an official post published in the Google Webmaster Blog. It is dated 2010, but it is still valid (or better, even more valid about the server location):

It says this about the server location as Geotargeting factor:

Server location (through the IP address of the server) is frequently near your users. However, some websites use distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are hosted in a country with better webserver infrastructure, so we try not to rely on the server location alone.

Said that, a best practice is to follow one of these options:

1. hosting the site in the country targeted;
2. using an IP assigned to the targeted country and operate via proxy

[blacey]

Nice idea. How would you go about setting up the proxy would this be done on the DNS record for the site, and would there be any speed decreased going through the proxy?

[sherohass]

Hi,

This is what I experienced for a Local business if I try my Office Computer (Washington DC) in Comparison to home Computer (Baltimore) for sure there is a little variation for Local business websites. However if you have a website that has International or Worldwide Market the effect is negligible.

S.H

[gfiorelli1]

This old post by Richard Baxter on SEOgadget explains this better I can do right now :):

Proxy caching for International SEO

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi

Good to see you Gianluca,

I agree with you 100% however I think the content delivery networks that are getting better and better and using a excellent DNS provider/registrar like DYN.com gives you the ability to former synergy with the CDN companies. I would strongly recommend http://dyn.com and http://www.highwinds.com/network/index.php if you do not want to have to deal with hosting in that specific area however. Companies like Peer 1 are literally everywhere with their CDN's as well. While I will agree having a server in that area of where you want to target is somewhat well let's say 7 years ago there is no choice today CDN's I think have given you that opportunity.

Sincerely,

Thomas

[summer300]

Thank you everyone for your help and feedback.