I was going through the SEO Bible and came upon this paragraph: I am confused Does it mean that having the web host and domain registrar in different countries affect your SERP? Or is it seen from a different perspective as below... If I, from Fiji, host my domain on a USA server, how will the SE spiders know that the owner is from Fiji. Obviously, it does not have my who.is information, since I use Who.is Guard on my domain. I assume that the above was a myth that has been shelved long ago. What are your opinions on the above? Is it a myth?
I think there is a good chance that Google does look at your web host location when applying geotargeting filters. It only makes sense for them to do so. There is a strong chance that a website will be hosted in the same country that they are targeting. I'm not so sure they look at whois info since the info can be blocked. Most trusted websites do list a physical address on their website, which could be compared to the hosting location.
Thanks for the answer. So if my host is located in USA and I choose United States as the geo target in Google webmaster tools, things should be ok, right?
Hosting absolutely matters. If a host has the server set up wrong it can cause you plenty of problems. The point I believe the article was trying to make is this: If two hosts are set up properly, and offering you a shared hosting option then their should be no penalty for choosing one over the other. But the reality is there are many reasons why hosting can effect your efforts. Something as simple as how fast your pages load can and will play a role. It's widely speculated that Google looks at how long your pages take to load. Find the best host you can afford that meets your needs. Reliability and customer support mean everything. Unless you dont' care about your business.
Thanks for the reply, but I don't think that is the point the article is trying to make.... EDIT I guess the original article was wrong is saying that hosting will affect SERP ranking. Here is an explanation by Google: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=62399&hl=en