Mediarun Search Marketing News

Hosting outside the UK 'could reduce your SEO effectiveness'

May 25th 2010

Search Engine Optimisation News

When it comes to picking a host for your website, there are a million and one things that need to be considered. Cost is probably the most pressing, followed by security. However, these concerns could be the other way around if you are a procurement officer at a high-profile government organisation that wants to avoid losing people's personal data at all costs.

But, one of the things that is often overlooked is the impact your choice of host will have on your SEO (search engine optimisation) strategy. And the effects on search engine marketing are not merely limited to the location the hosting server is in - although this does have a huge influence.

Locating your website outside of your core territory is detrimental to SEO in a number of ways. First of all, Google tends to list sites on their relevant, local search engine. So if your website is hosted in Poland it may never make it high up the rankings on Google.co.uk - no matter how inspiring your search engine optimisation. What's more, loading a website from abroad can be a slow process; and since Google rankings are influenced by speed as well as the quality of content, hosting abroad could be detrimental to a company's bottom line in the long run.

Picking a less-than reputable foreign website host can also result in your site being accidentally blacklisted - particularly if other sites on the same server have been blocked.

There is also the downtime consideration. A website which experiences a lot of downtime will struggle to benefit from SEO as Google's crawlers won't even be able to access the site, let alone effectively rank it.

In the short term, users will be prevented from logging on, but in the long term a website's search engine marketing strategy will be jeopardised if it keeps crashing.

All in all, it is vitally important for SEO purposes - and for your company's reputation - to pick a dedicated website host that will not reduce the impact of marketing efforts simply by being unreliable, or located in the wrong region.

To find out about the performance solution we can offer you and your business, speak to one of our consultants on 0207 843 2265 or contact us.