Let me pass this SEO tip I learned the hard way when it comes to SEO and Hosting.
I realized a few months ago that my AU hosted site was ranking higher for Australia in Google compared to my Hostgator US based sites.. the reason? My site was hosted in a AU based server and had an .au domain name of course I targeted AU based people, this time in the lose weight niche.. long story made short I learned that web hosting for your site should match your website target country, my other sites ranked nowhere for Google in this case..
Formula is: COUNTRY HOSTING SERVER + SAME COUNTRY DOMAIN NAME = BETTER RANKED WEBSITE FOR AN SPECIFIC COUNTRY.
Tip: Whois should match the Target country as well. SEO starts here!
- For example if you plan to target Uk based people with your website it smarter to host the site on UK based web servers. - Find and use a reliable offshore hosting provider or local hosting provider in that country. In this case we will be hosting the site in the UK - Local Rankings will improve even more if we use a country related domain name , ex: .co.uk domain name for our UK site. Forget about no country target sites they have a very hard time ranking for specific locations and a part of that is because Google has no idea where they belong to.. Your hosting server tells clearly where you are from.. think about it.
- Ranking sites online nowadays is all about Location location and location of your website, Google will determine that based on where you are hosting your site first, then your whois and then your domain name then your site content. if it is UK, include in your Content UK city names, locations, streets, etc this another SEO trick a lot of people ignore..
In resume, Targeting one country but hosting somewhere else is a common mistake that newbies make when launching their sites.
Again, think we are targeting Australians that love Tennis.. in that case going with Hostgator is a big mistake period!
In my case I have several sites cheaply hosted with BullionHost.com they are US based and they offer offshore hosting plans, they have been around for quite a long time, a service like this will make your life far easier when trying to SEO and rank your websites.
Enjoy