Hi All, Im launching a new site and will be targeting a predominantly US based audeince. I am in Australia and was wondering if i should host in the US or in Australia. Does it matter where your site is hosted from? I read somewhere that if your ip is in the country you are trying to target it can help your rankings in that country? Is this true? Please help!! Regards Dave
Well, if you have large files (like file hosting) then you gotta pay more attention to the location (like US server would be better), but if it's articles and stuff with small kB size, then it doesn't matter that much. I suppose if you have US audience then it won't hurt getting an US located server. As for rankings - it doesn't matter (well, at least unless you are located in some country that seriously restricts the internet usage... but there's pretty much no any other practical value than the load speed)
In google; For me it's true, I've also read that crap on certain google SERP issue. They called that "regional indexing" related with "google regional data center" you will have definitely good positions on "google australia engine" also try to get the domain extension
I haven't noticed any difference... but won't argue about this. Would need more comments from more people (with proof please - how's it true? and what kind of exact penalties/improvements people have got?) Has anybody had certain domain on US server, and then transferred the same domain to Australia (or somewhere) and got different ranking in search engines? If somebody has done this, would be great to see that story.