hi guys I have been trying to geotarget my ".ca" domains with them being hosted on godaddy.com which is a US based IP address. I heard changing to a Canadian host/IP would help verfiy my sites are for Canadians and help rank in GOOGLE.ca SO I PUT IT TO THE TEST. So I changed hosting to hostpapa.ca (awesome plans) ...I checked the current rankings for 22 ".ca" domains in google.com, google.ca (both search web, and search Canadian sites) so i have the current stats. i am not sure sure how long it will take to see if my rankings will change - but i will post on this thread in a few weeks of changes.
thats good that you changed your IP but i would usually do that at the end when competition is fierce and when almost any little bit of thing helps. to begin with, you can have a .ca domain and by dafault google will know the targeted geo. you will see that when you login to your google webmaster tool account. second wil lbe building backlinks form .ca domains or domains hosted on canadian hosts. that usually takes care of it most of the time. if you still struggle, changing your server IP is at the end. at this stage, i wuold suggest you keep building as many backlinks form .ca sites as possible
the server Location is definitely a ranking factor, and when you are trying to achieve great results, then naturally you should try to have every possible factor on your side, I'd say you did a good move, i will follow this thread, please post again if you see an improvement. good luck