Does Server Location Matter?

[laura_c]

TCH have been hosting my web-site for some months now - and the service, reliability and Ts&Cs have been great. Any questions I ask get answered quickly; any issues are fixed almost before I can ask. I have no complaints.

 

Recently, it has been suggested to me that because most of my customers are in the UK, I am suffering lower page rankings and lower search engine position for keyword searches because TCH servers are all located in the USA. Can this be right? Do I really have to move away to another host to get better search result placings?

 

I thought the internet was more open than that and that the geographic location of the server was irrelevant?

 

Anyone have knowledge, thoughts or advice on this, please?

[TCH-Bruce]

First time I've ever heard something like that, but with ever changing search engine optimization who knows. I still believe content and incoming links have more to do with recognition than server location.

[TCH-Dick]

I am going to assume you are tracking most of your results on Google. If that is the case, I recommend you sign up for Google's WebMaster Tools, which allows you to set your Geographic target.

[laura_c]

Thanks Bruce and Dick for your feedback. I have already used the Google Webmaster Tools and set the geographic location. However, we are still being advised by SEO organisations that being based on a US located server is detrimental to our search results position.

 

Whilst researching, I came across the following article which may be of interest to others:-

 

Making Geotargeted Content Findable For the Right Searchers

 

I am continuing to look into this, but it seems there may be some foundation to the location of servers being pertinent to search results.