Implications of hosting country versus actual trading country?
-
Unbeknown to me our web developers have hosted our UK e-commerce site (and only serving the UK & outer islands) on a US based server. Can this impact our SEO efforts? My further concern is when it comes to sending out emails and opt-in regulations - I am right to be concerned about this as well?
Thanks -
Hi Andy - I wish I could move away from them, but seem to be locked in. Yes, there are databases involved. Thank you. I am now looking into hosting in the UK. You live and learn - but sometimes at a price. Thanks again.
-
Thank you Gary - another interesting factor which I appreciate. Just goes to show you have to ensure that every I is dotted when dealing with developers - especially when they claim to be experts!! Coupled with other emerging errors this has been costly in terms of time etc.
-
Aside from problems to do with the geo-location of the IP, hosting on US servers instead of UK servers will have a page load performance hit on your site, which in theory could affect your sites rankings.
I host half of my UK sites on Germany based servers, and the other half on UK servers, and I notice no real difference.
-
It sounds to me like you need to move away from them ASAP! Is the site a static HTML site or are there databases involved as well? In bringing the site back, you need to make sure that everything comes back over and the transition is not messed up for you.
-
Thank you MaryAnne - I was pretty sure that this was the case so as yet have not implemented an e-marketing campaign. For a variety of reasons I had assumed it was hosted in the UK so was pretty shocked to find it wasn't.
-
Thank you Andy - I had believed this to be the case so that is great to have it confirmed. In migrating it to UK servers is there anything I should be aware of. The company involved have done other things that have caused me all sorts of problems.
-
Thank you for confirming Peter's comments - confirmation always gives strength of resolve. The target customers are the UK.
-
Thank you Peter for your helpful and prompt reply - this has worried me a lot and you only confirm my fears. (What makes it worse is that it is for a client). In migrating to a UK server are there any things I should be aware of.
-
To address the other half of your question: I'm quite certain that if your site is hosted in the US and your host were to receive a spam complaint, they'd be obligated to address it according to the laws of their jurisdiction, which means you would have to abide by the US CAN-SPAM regulations. I'd definitely run this by your company's legal counsel to be on the safe side.
-
Google uses the IP of the server hosting the site as one way of delivering that content to the correct target areas. So in short, yes, this is a problem and one that you need to resolve.
It is an SEO tactic that is used if you are country specific and want to target other locations.
Regards,
Andy
-
I agree with peterm22, but I'd also wanna know where are your targeted customers?
-
In short, Yes it can have an effect on your SEO. You may find it more difficult to show up on google.co.uk, even if you have a .co.uk domain name if you use a US host!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
SEO implications when changing the business function however using the same domain name
Hi Everyone, Request some advice on the following situation please: If a client wishes to start a new business (advertising agency) using a domain name that they previously used for a completely different business function (selling hats & t-shirts) Is there anything you can do to "clean" the domain so that the previous indexing of the domain does not effect the new business and give the client a fresh start. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Regards and thanks.
Technical SEO | | Republica0 -
Hreflang for multple countries but single language
I'm working on a site that has implemented hreflang. The site is all in English but has slight differences and breaks down to separate domains, so example.co.uk example.eu example.com the hreflang implementation targets specific countries per domain. This was tested using http://flang.dejanseo.com.au but Webmaster Tools has thrown up errors. For example, **URLs for your site and alternative URLs in 'en_GB' that do not have return tags. **But every page refers back.Any ideas what's going wrong?
Technical SEO | | MickEdwards0 -
Blocking certain countries via IP address location
We are a US based company that ships only to US and Canada. We've had two issues arise recently from foreign countries (Russia namely) that caused us to block access to our site from anyone attempting to interact with our store from outside of the US and Canada. 1. The first issue we encountered were fraudulent orders originating from Russia (using stolen card data) and then shipping to a US based International shipping aggregator. 2. The second issue was a consistent flow of Russian based "new customer" entries. My question to the MOZ community is this: are their any unintended consequences, from an SEO perspective, to blocking the viewing of our store from certain countries.
Technical SEO | | MNKid150 -
Businesses That Have 2 Trading Addresses
Hi, I have a quick question regarding Local SEO. We have a building company that operates from 2 addresses, about 70 miles apart. When we changed the address in the footer of our website to a different registered office the rankings for that local area bombed. What I would like to know is if there is a way I can properly mark up the site so that Google recognizes the same business works from 2 locations. Thanks
Technical SEO | | denismilton0 -
I was googling the word "best web hosting" and i notice the 1st and 3rd result were results with google plus. Does Google plus now play a role in improving ranking for the website?
I was googling the word "best web hosting" and i notice the 1st and 3rd result were results with google plus. Does Google plus now play a role in improving ranking for the website?I see a person's name next to the website too
Technical SEO | | mainguy0 -
Implications of multiple page descriptions?
Are there any implications of using two page description properties, i.e. meta name="<a class="attribute-value">description</a>" and meta property="<a class="attribute-value">og:description</a>"
Technical SEO | | Nathan.Smith0 -
Should I change my host
Have a feeling that the answer will be obvious here but more opinions are always good... I own a number of domains, mainly com, which are targeted at the UK but hosted in the netherlands. I have noticed a very high number of dutch hits to my sites. Lower than UK but takings population into account it works out to be higher. I fear my decision to renew my dutch server instead of going for a UK one is helping me rank in the wrong part of the world. I have paid a couple of months ahead for the dutch server but am wondering if the cost of writing off a couple of hundred pounds will be less than I'm losing due to my location. Should I take the financial hit on the server in the hope that buying a UK one will increase my relevant traffic?
Technical SEO | | Grumpy_Carl0 -
Robots.txt versus sitemap
Hi everyone, Lets say we have a robots.txt that disallows specific folders on our website, but a sitemap submitted in Google Webmaster Tools that lists content in those folders. Who wins? Will the sitemap content get indexed even if it's blocked by robots.txt? I know content that is blocked by robot.txt can still get indexed and display a URL if Google discovers it via a link so I'm wondering if that would happen in this scenario too. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | anthematic0