I wanted to ask how important it is to have the UK based hosting for a company that help with debts in the UK?

At the moment they have a US based hosting. Does it matter much for SEO ?

As Google and other engines use geo-targeting more there are three things that help:

 

1) country-specific domain

Google UK was hit a few years ago by a bug that killed non .co.uk sites in the 'UK only' results.

Also this will help you host in another country and still get featured in 'UK only' results.

 

2) country-specific links

From what I'm hearing about Google Caffeine, this is getting dialled up in the new algo.

 

3) country-specific hosting

This has always been absolutely essential if you don't have a country-specific domain.

 

In Google UK run the 'site:mydomain.xtn' search for 'UK results only'.

If there are no results then you really need to host here. Related to (1) I just tried a .co.uk that I know is hosted in Germany and found it. I'd still host in the UK myself though - who knows if it is an extra factor?

I wanted to ask how important it is to have the UK based hosting for a company that help with debts in the UK?

At the moment they have a US based hosting. Does it matter much for SEO ?

 

 

Geo target market is really important. Google is improving this, it's has a lot of pitfall but truly will be a sure in the future. Take a look in this from a Google employee.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/more-about-generic-tlds-in-say-uk-results/

 

It's related to your question.

 

Best,

Daniel

From my experience with previous websites hosted in the USA:

 

If you have a .co.uk domain, but your site is hosted in the US, you should be ok.

 

If you have a .com domain and your site is hosted in the US, it can be much harder to get ranked for your key search terms.

 

Now, this isn't set in stone, but have all the messing about I had, I've decided to use UK hosted servers from now on for UK based websites.

Irrespective of search engines supposedly being able to suss out geographical stuff it's still not foolproof, so if your target audience is in the UK the best solution will always be a UK domain name hosted on UK servers

In my experience there is a small but noticeable speed difference between UK->Uk Hosting and UK->US Hosting, especially the lower cost stuff. It's not much but worth keeping in mind.

If you are interested in having good rankings for your UK registered domain and site, go with the UK hosting accounts as the IP addresses are playing important parts in the SEO world.

I suggest you to go for UK based hosting.having .co.uk domain specification most of the sites are indexing in Search engines.If you are in a confusion to choose about country domain specification.There are many web hosting companies are there.They will guide you in a more proper way..

In my experience there is a small but noticeable speed difference between UK->Uk Hosting and UK->US Hosting, especially the lower cost stuff. It's not much but worth keeping in mind.

 

I've noticed this too - I used to use Media Temple for hosting and the lag was so noticable that I moved to a more local hosting solution.

 

I would recommend UK hosting and .co.uk domain name.

Also, tools like Flagfox can give information on where a domain is hosted,

 

I was quite surprised to find my .co.uk hosting company is actually hosting me in Canada, not that I mind, I just assumed they would be UK.

Yes, unfortunately a lot of hosting companies actually just rent servers in US datacenters.

For local websites (country target), I always trying to find a local hosting and ensure that they servers are located inside the country. If a local hosting is not possible, at least a country domain is a must.

 

Cheers,

Daniel

In my experience there is a small but noticeable speed difference between UK->Uk Hosting and UK->US Hosting, especially the lower cost stuff. It's not much but worth keeping in mind.

 

At least some people notice this Not everyone appears to notice this and shrug it off

 

There is a latency issue with hosting in the USA, also uploading your content will be some what slower going over the Atlantic ocean rather than into a UK data center.

 

I'd always suggest hosting your website where your target audience resides, if the audience is Americans - host in America, if it's people from New Zealand - host in New Zealand and so on...

I use US based hosting because its much cheaper and you get more features than most UK hosts. I have a .com and my content is not geo-targeted. Yet I rank well in Google UK.

 

Go for the best priced and featured hosting deal, regardless of its location, any time delay is minimal and as for uploading content, if its worth an extra 30% on your hostin costs for a 10% speed increase, well go for it, but I would suggest after ten years experience within a UK business with US based hosting that it does not matter at all.

I use US based hosting because its much cheaper and you get more features than most UK hosts. I have a .com and my content is not geo-targeted. Yet I rank well in Google UK.

 

Go for the best priced and featured hosting deal, regardless of its location, any time delay is minimal and as for uploading content, if its worth an extra 30% on your hostin costs for a 10% speed increase, well go for it, but I would suggest after ten years experience within a UK business with US based hosting that it does not matter at all.

 

Thanks for all the replies.

I'm more interested in this question not from the money point of view as the difference in hosting pricing is quite minimal but from the SEO point.