SEO - Do I host in the country I am targeting

Hi all

I'm about to launch a new site targeted at a specific country.

For SEO purposes, does it make any difference where I host? For example, should I actually host my website in the country I am targeting?

My domain is a .com domain.

Thoughts and experiences appreciated.

 

The geo location of the hosting server has effect on the local searches. When we moved a website from UK to an USA server the results from the UK local searches -I mean 'pages from the UK'- have gone with the wind.

 

Thanks for the reply. So you are actually saying it had a big impact on local searched. In other words you should host the site in the geographical market you are targeting?

 

hosting plus domain tld also impact on search results for specific country.

e.g. .co.uk and .co.in special are specified for uk and india.

 

Yes, if you want to grab every opportunity you need to host the site in the targetted country.

 

Yes it actually does. The server location, the TLD, inbound links are some of the factors that would play a big role in targeting a specific geographical location.

Google tries and give geo targeted results based on these and many other factors.