Hi. Does anyone know of any problems I might face when switching from a UK to US host? Should I keep my DNS in the UK or switch it over to the US aswell? Thanks.
I'd say keep the dns in the uk, unless you want to change it anyway. Otherwise when its expiring you could transfer it.
Yes depending on your ccTLD if you have a .co.uk or .com it would make a difference in your ranking on the uk version of google. a .com hosted in the UK will rank in the uk google where as a .com hosted in the US won't rank in the sites from the uk button on google. a .co.uk will rank in the sites from the uk no matter where you host it.
It wont make a difference on shifting from UK to US host on the google search. Your website will have the same status as before. I have an asian website hosted (.com) in US and it has been marked as asian only and not US by google.
It will make a difference if you have a .com hosted in the UK as you will have better rankings in the UK only search. If you move that .com to a US host then you will lose your UK only search rankings. I cannot say from experience for the UK but the AU google with sites from Australia only button ticked is around 50% of all my search queries.
I can only say that if you dont have experience and dont deal with such stuff daily dont confuse a person.
I'm in complete agreement with you. It is completely new to me that hosting of certain domains in certain countries will have a lot of advantages. Probably another bad joke.
If you actually read the post before you posted I do have experience but not with UK only traffic. I said I get around 50% of my traffic from the AUSTRALIA only traffic button. I cannot say that someone in the UK will get the same % or more or less. I do know that if you host a .com in the USA then DO NOT EXPECT to get any traffic from any country tld google with the from that country only button ticked.
Its not a joke. .co.uk or .com.au or any country tld can be hosted anywhere in the world and still receive traffic from the google of that country with the "pages from country" button ticked. any tld whether it be .com.info.net.biz hosted in a country other than the US will receive traffic from that hosting countries google when someone has the "pages from country" ticked.
Yes you are right on Country domains. But your Point 2 is wrong. Google Toolbar/Google Webmaster Tool are responsible for Geo Targeting as far I have seen.
I won't argue but can you show me a .com hosted in the USA that shows up in any other countries google website with the "Pages from that country" button ticked. If you can I will sincerely apologize.