With the continuously evolving, changing and increasing algorithm of Google, it can be overwhelming to decide what factors are important to your efforts to optimize your search engine (SEO). Some aspects are clear and routine: keywords, links, and reputation. Are those the only factors affecting SEO?
What other factors are considered to be important? Consider one of the first decisions that you make when you launch a web. One that is often too hurriedly made without really understanding the impact. The alternative is to choose a hosting service provider.
Does your hosting provider affect SEO?
Your host option won’t boost your ranking straight away. This won’t move you to the first page, or attract further traffic directly to your site. A bad host selection can have a detrimental effect though. So wisely choosing can give you a competitive edge.
Most new website owners choose for a hosting provider because it’s free. All they see are signs of the dollar and do not take into account the impact it can have on their marketing. You can choose wisely and have the advantage by understanding the role of the hosting in SEO. So how does it affect the rankings of SEO?
Server Security
When the security of your website is very important. Not only for your rankings in Google but also for your user experience and safety. An unsecure website will damage your rating in multiple ways. Google penalizes sites that are attack or hosting by malware or be target. When visitors learn about the security flaws your traffic and reputation will be harmed.
All of these factors contributed to a decline in rankings. You can do everything you can to protect your website personally, but your host also plays a role in the protection of the site. The function is most prominent if you rely on a shared hosting service. If other sites on the same server have poor security, this gives hackers an opportunity to hack multiple sites on the same server. The solution is moving to a dedicated server here. Even then, you need to find out what security measures they take to protect their servers.
Server Location
It may seem as if position in Google’s ranking algorithm has only recently become such a huge factor, but it has been a metric for a long time. Google depends on information about the location even when the search is not a local search. For example, if a person searches from within the United States (US) the websites on servers located in the US are more likely to be close to the top. In their findings they’re much less likely to see pages from Japan or China.
There was a time when they used the Top Level Domain only to determine the location of a site. They have recently started to focus more on the IP address, because it provides more accurate results. This is good news for the search-maker, but if your server is in a different location it can harm your business. You need to know where the server is located, and where the target audience is located. Then pick a hosting service that will have servers in the same country as most of your audience.
Server Performance
One final element that needs to be consider is server performance that requires the speed of the server and its downtime. The server’s overall performance can affect the user’s experience which is taken seriously by Google. Google frequently penalizes websites with slow loading speeds, as well as sites suffering from downtime. Most hosting providers have very high uptime percentages.
Having a host with less than 99% uptime is rare but 1% can make a difference.as for the loading pace, there are plenty of design choices you can make to improve your site’s efficiency, but your host can still slow you down to a point where your SEO efforts are hurting. The use of a shared server is more likely than a dedicated server to harm your load. A dedicated server will cost you more money but in the long run it will be much better for business.
Numerous high quality hosts are spread over the Internet. It should not be difficult to find a host with the right location, quality performance and one which takes security seriously. Just make sure you do your research and review the hosting provider’s each of these qualities before making a decision. Otherwise, your SEO strategy might not deliver the results it should be.
