Effect of same country server hosting on SEO

[adnan1101]

Hello all,

my question is if my website targets a country abc and I have server in the same country abc compared to suppose I shift my server to country xyz

can it effect SEO and ranking of my website ?

[Alick300]

Hi,

Google says "Server Location Mostly Irrelevant For SEO".

I'm quoting Google's John Mueller in response to the question of SEO and server location:

"For search, specifically for geotargeting, the server's location plays a very small role, in many cases it's irrelevant. If you use a ccTLD or a gTLD together with Webmaster Tools, then we'll mainly use the geotargeting from there, regardless of where your server is located. You definitely don't need to host your website in any specific geographic location -- use what works best for you, and give us that information via a ccTLD or Webmaster Tools."

Q: Is the server location important for geotargeting?

If you can use one of the other means to set geotargeting (ccTLD or Webmaster Tools’ geotargeting tool), you don’t need worry about the server’s location. We do, however, recommend making sure that your website is hosted in a way that will give your users fast access to it (which is often done by choosing hosting near your users).

_Original thread @ https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/k6po9mnpI8c/discussion_

Hope this helps.

Thanks