When choosing a hosting for hosting a website, each owner of such a resource evaluates several key points at once. Among them:
- price of the service;
- resources offered by the host server (power, memory, etc.);
- additional service (technical support, administration).
These characteristics are of concern to the consumer because it’s no secret that the parameters of hosting directly affect the work of the site, including its search engine optimization. Let’s talk about which properties of the server to pay attention to, and which are not essential.
The location of the server affects the SEO of the site: false
It’s no secret that many owners of web resources from Eastern Europe would like to host them on a server that is physically located in Western European countries, for example, on the United Kingdom VPS. After all, in this case, the hardware and all the information stored on it are protected by the norms of legislation in force in a foreign country. Without a court decision, without good reason, the hoster’s activities cannot be hindered.
The reliability and security of the site is the most important factor in the success of an electronic business or a web resource with large databases of personal data of users. However, many owners of online stores and gaming portals, video providers are afraid that the physical remoteness of the host from the actual users (target audience) will lead to a decrease in site traffic.
Some SEO experts claim that search engines really take into account the location of the server when ranking. Other experts are sure that this is far from the decisive factor in the search promotion of a web resource. These disputes do not stop. We will not join them, but will provide the data announced by Google representatives. The official reports contain information that the location of the server does not affect SEO. Let’s stop there.
The lower the load speed, the less often the site will appear in the search results: true
The opinions of experts completely agree on this issue. SEO, that is, the visibility of the site for search engines, is directly affected by the speed of response and the effectiveness of hosting. A slow server will become a hindrance to promotion even with a perfectly optimized resource and a competent SEO campaign.
Search engines take into account different factors when ranking. And the same Google openly states in its official reports that page loading speed is one of the important parameters. Therefore, it is recommended that sites for which SEO optimization is important be placed not on shared virtual hosting, but on a virtual private server. It is the best option for a small e-commerce resource or an information portal with up to 10 users per second.
Of course, slowing down the site may be caused by code errors. But if there are no problems with the technical part and the web pages do not want to load, then the reason is in the resources that the hoster has allocated to you. Most often, low speed is observed if the site uses the resources of a shared server together with other users. Another thing is VPS. In this case, each tenant receives certain amounts of power and operating memory, which can be increased on request.
A good download speed will reduce the number of downtimes, and increase conversion. As a result, web pages will be ranked better. Popular online services will help you check the loading speed of the site.
Uptime/downtime directly affects the SEO of the site: true
The term “downtime” implies the total time when the site is unavailable to search engines and users due to host server failures. Search bots constantly visit the web resource, evaluating its work and activity. If they register regular downtime, they indicate that the site is unavailable. And each time his rating will decrease. A few such fixations and the search engine algorithms will identify the web page as a non-working resource. The search engine will not display the site, considering it unreliable.
Therefore, when choosing a hosting service, be sure to specify what uptime the provider guarantees you. And count. If the hoster says that 99% of the time the server will work without failures, do not rush to rent it. Under these conditions, your site will be unavailable for 15 minutes a day. Not so much at first glance? And 7.5 hours a month? It’s still the same 99% uptime.
It is not difficult to avoid such downtime. Just rent a server from a provider that guarantees 99.98% uptime. As a rule, such hosters completely eliminate downtime and leave two-hundredths of a percent in case of emergencies.
Sharing an IP address with other sites affects SEO: true
If your web resource is hosted on a shared virtual hosting, then it will share with other sites that are also located on the server, not only power and RAM, but also reputation and address. For example, your random neighbor on the virtual server will be a fraudulent site with dangerous content. In this case, search engine crawlers will detect a malicious IP. This will negatively affect the position in the search results not only of the attacker site itself, but on all web resources with the same address. Therefore, SEO optimization is directly related to the reliability of the IP address.
How to influence SEO?
From the information provided above, it becomes clear that the choice of hosting is an important factor for successful SEO promotion. You should not choose the cheapest option, as high-quality services cannot be free. And in a bad scenario, no optimization tools will be able to “raise” the site in the search results.
Well, if everything is fine with the server, it works quickly and without downtime, and search robots categorically do not want to show the site in the output, most likely, the reason lies elsewhere. Work with the design and usability of web pages, review the content, pay attention to its usefulness for visitors and uniqueness. Develop an SEO optimization strategy. A competent campaign is sure to bear fruit and give a good result.