Will my hosting IP affects local SEO?

[LocksmithLondon]

This post is deleted!

[ChrisAshton]

The overwhelming opinion of the industry seems to be "yes, it matters" and back in 2009 Google's Head of Web Spam, Matt Cutts did specifically confirm this.

2009 was a long time ago. More recently, Google's Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller said that it's a minor factor at best and in many factors it doesn't make any difference:

_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. _Source

So, what do you do with old and conflicting information? I tend to lean toward keeping sites on a server in the country they're targeting if I'm given the choice (new website/domain) or if moving the site is very easy. If getting the site on a different server is a lot of work, I wouldn't bother.

As John mentioned, your ccTLD and Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) settings are more influential these days.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Chris has covered this pretty well.

It shouldn't make a difference, but from a best-practice point of view, you should really try to keep everything local if you are a local business. As a business based in London, you should really have UK based hosting, or a CDN that will deliver your site to those in different countries.

There can also be speed issues, but a lot of that depends on the host and their infrastructure.

If a client comes to me for an audit, if I see thier hosting in a different country, this is then flagged as a possible issue.

-Andy