Here is my situation. I live in Ukraine (Eastern Europe) and plan to create a website targeted for foreigners coming to Ukraine from Western Europe. I'm considering GoDaddy (USA) as a hosting company (cheaper etc.). Can anyone tell me if location of hosting matters for Google search engine results? In other words if I choose local (Ukrainian) hosting company will Google place my website higher in search results for particular keywords? Or location of hosting doesn't matte I'm aware about other ranking criteria, my question is only about location of hosting company. My second small question is pretty much more the same: if I have a local website targeted for local customers. Do I need to choose local hosting company to be placed higher for particular keywords? Please share your opinions.
Google has stated that the location of the hosting server is a factor in the rankings, though it is debatable how much of a factor it is. Here are a couple of videos where Google addresses that question. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keIzr3eWK8I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXt23AXlJJU
Yes the hosting location matters in SEO, having a bad neighborhood in the hosted IP address will affect the ranking.
yes, hosting server matters in seo. You can also register multiple hosting accounts and pay that way and those servers located in different parts of the usa or whatever country.
It appears that this is a factor now with serps. Hosting a UK based site in the UK is meant to help with with organic seo rankings although proof of this is currently not really available.
I agree that site loading time is more important than hosting location. Godaddy will not hurt your rankings in google.