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That's right. If the design hides content but there's a proper button to expand it (and legible for spiders) you don't worry at all. If you are trying to hide content on purpose, yes, might be penalized.

Howdy, neighbor. If their server is indeed hosted with google - dont worry about speed and loading times, that's for sure. All my tests prove that there is no better place to host than Google (in terms of speed). Host provider office location doesn't matter, since their actual servers are located in,  most likely Provo, Utah. Additionally, nowadays the time to servers and back doesn't vary much with distance. Example - we got several servers - one in dallas and one in utah. the difference in response times is 30-60 ms. Now, there is no connection between SERPS and IPs, unless that IP is blacklisted. In terms of subdomain being on different server - there is no difference either, since as you say, it's for orders and quotes only. Many-many websites have their shopping carts on servers, different from main content servers. Also since you're not gonna have any content on that subdomain, or backlinks to that subdomain (since it's quotes and payments), it won't bring any rankings changes. You can even robot-noindex the subdomain if you're afraid of changes after it's being indexed. The only legitimate concern is UX, based on longer loading times. So, make sure that software server are fast enough and you'll have no problems. Additionally, the small lag is accepted (even expected), when you're being redirected to shopping cart/payment pages. Cheers.

Agree with Daniel - according to John Mueller from Google the location of the server is (almost) irrelevant - it's mainly the performance and the user experience that counts. Quote :'For search, specifically for geotargeting, the server's location plays a very small role, in many cases it's irrelevant'. I guess it used to be a more important signal but currently is no longer the case - check this article on Webmaster support: "Server location (through the IP address of the server). The server location is often physically near your users and can be a signal about your site’s intended audience. Some websites use distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are hosted in a country with better webserver infrastructure, so it is not a definitive signal." Google is quite capable of determining based on your content (address, etc) which audience you are targeting so go ahead and move your server to California. rgds, Dirk

I would do some keyword research to find out how people looking for your printing services are searching. Are they typing the city first? I don't know. I know from my own searching that when I'm looking for a local business or service I usually tag the city on the end...but that's just me. For example if I'm looking for a new Dentist, I would type "dentist olympia wa" But don't trust my searching habits, do a little keyword research to find out which combination wins out in search volume. Good luck!