Hi, anyone could help shed light on whether the actual physical location of the web server (e.g. US, Canada, UK, Australia) matters in the rankings results of Search engines(e.g. google.com ; yahoo.com)? Thanks in advance.
Yes it does come in to play. If you want to target a british market on google.co.uk then you should host that site at a British IP. I mean you don't have to but it will definitely help your efforts.
Can you prove that i mathers? Here i norway is pretty common to choose hosting from other countries because it's way more cheaper. I know there are many other countries that works the same way.
Yes and Google realize this, i have never found server location plays any significant part in rankings. I've moved alot of sites around between US/AUS/ASIA/EUR etc and never noticed anything other than everyday flux. The TLD is what matters most, along with backlinks from your target TLD and of course your locality mentioned on your pages. Where having a server in your target geographic location is good is the faster server response times due to low ping, which in turn makes your site a lot faster for your target audience.
Loren Baker posted this about a month ago. It does matter. I've had clients who had trouble ranking in their home markets and a large reason was geo-location of their server http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-rankings-influenced-by-server-domain-registrar-and-geographic-location/5963/
I've never seen any evidence of it and i've transfered 100's of sites over the years between different Geo Locations. It's very common for sites in many countries to be hosted in the US because of the cheap infrastructure, and Google is aware of this.
Thanks to everyone's input, seems to have 2 schools of thoughts, and with relevant experiences as well. I am hosted outside US and noticed that the same website ranks better when using "localized" SE to search for the keywords, e.g. using SE.co.uk as compared to the same search engine's main site at SE.com Does seem to indicate to me that the localized SE do take physical location(likely using the IP address reference) as a consideration. But not so sure about the main site at SE.com though.
Ok well believe what you want. But I just posted a link to an article by a well known SEO who says it does make a difference. It is common to be hosted in the U.S. due to cost, and Google may be aware of it, however that still doesn't mean it doesn't affect search rankings. Now if you can show me a statement/article from a reputable source stating that it doesn't make a difference, then I'm all ears. Otherwise it's your opinion vs mine and we can agree to disagree.
I'm outranking the "well known SEO" for the term SEO, SEO Company and every other keyword that we are both targeting by miles... And your point is?
LOL, ok good for you. Like I said believe what you want. You still haven't shown me proof of your claims. Where as I have. No arguing with stubbornness.
I don't see much proof there. So the site was around a long time, then his rankings decided to drop on US. Now logic dictates if it was due to server/IP location it would of happened from the onset and not years later. Also this story indicates Google news as the culprit, however Google says this. If you look back i didn't say Google does not use server location, i said i've never it has played any significant part after moving 100's of sites across every continent. Ok, once and for all Google's exact word on this are: