Do I need a US IP-address for a US-targeted .com site?

Hello!

If I want google's region boost to be applied to my site, will I need an IP in the designated country or is a fitting domain extension sufficient? I am currently running an account with a very good hoster here in the Netherlands, and I wonder if I will get penalized for running a US-targeted site on a Dutch IP.

 

As far as I know, it should not matter (But this is a guess) Maybe a meta tag with lang="en-US" > would help.

You can also use Google's Webmaster tools to "Set geographic target" if you only want to target a certain area.

Hope that helps

Cheers
James

 

Google only resorts to the geo positioning of the IP in its determination of where to serve it in SERPS as a LAST resort.

The factors that affect it SEOwize first would be

1. On the site itself, having an address that is US based
2. Your domain registration, having a US address
3. Specific geo targeted content
4. English content

If all that is bust.. THEN it will look at the Ip location and try to use that to help get some idea.

hope this helps

 

scriptglue, thanks for that. +rep for you

 

Meanwhile remember that US IP address is only a tiny part of site's advantage for Google.

 

no, that's not important. unique ip has some more features but no one related to banning, or they will never going to ban you.

 

salman4raza, no one is talking about a ban here. If you really want to gain some exclusively targeted traffic - you MUST have your hosting in the same area.

 

I don't think the hosting country is all that important. There are so many other factors to consider. If it were me, I would continue to market the website. If it seems like you have enough links, but can't get the rankings, then go ahead and switch web hosts. I doubt it is very crucial though.

I was recently marketing a Canadian website that was hosted in the US. Our google.ca rankings were much better than our google.com rankings.

 

trust me, us ip is more valuable than eu ip for us target market ...

 

Frankly speaking IP Doesnt matter at alll... I Mean what google cares where your server is

 

lol no background info -- 4 posts -- but yes, will trust you because you say so...

hehe

 

I've found the largest factor for me is where I get my inbound links from

I have sites in the US that do really well in the UK due to inbound links and sites in the UK which seem to do really well in india due to inbound links

 

it doesn't matter as long as yo have good content and an top level extension. If you have country extension, it will automatically target the country. You also have option in Google webmaster tools to set GEO target

 

I agree with these points.

 

improve your links

 

yeah, its important for you to had a US IP for your site..
Google's SERPs depended on the IP

 

"and I wonder if I will get penalized for running a US-targeted site on a Dutch IP"

There is no such penalty. You can target any site you want, and host the site where ever you want to.

But if you want to rank good in US searches, then having a US based ip will help. Also try to get backlinks from US based sites. Use the geographical targeting option in webmaster tools.

 

i think you'd better use a us-ip.

 

you can submit your site on each google domain country..

example google.co.id , google.fr, google.de ..etc

users from diffrent country can see your ads...