My site is #1 for all the important keywords in my industry. In total I've got almost 20 top ten spots. The problem is, you can only see these results in the US. Why is this a problem? Because I'm in the UK... I get these excellent results when searching MSN using a US Proxy IP address. The same SERPs are confirmed by the DP Keyword Tracker. Can you folks suggest how I can get similarly impressive MSN results here in the UK?
The site is indeed hosted in the US but everything I've read says that hosting isn't fundamental to SERPs ... If that is not true, would it therefore be fair to assume that if my site were hosted in the UK, I'd be enjoying similarly successful SERPs?
Having your site hosted overseas is a major setback when it comes to SEO. My advice is to get the hosting moved to London ASAP. In your case since you are targetting a very specific area (London) you definately need UK/London hosting. If you were targetting a more generic term eg "escort agency" then it wouldn't matter as much.
Server location is certainly relevant to SERPs that get localized, IMO... which is all 3 engines now. Since you're targeting a local area, I would certainly host in the UK. I'll show you proof with my own sites if you want; send a PM.
I did not know that - pretty interesting... My sites are showing different results in europe when I am in the USA - I never could figure it out ... now I know why Is there anything one can do to have the "best of both worlds"? I would love to know more and Jack R could you please keep us abreast of the results please? The Crow
a .com hosted in the US is a US company for the SEs - why would they think anything else ? .co.uk hosted in the US , or .com hosted in the UK Equals UK results Of course, .co.uk hosted in the UK is the best bet
Your cost per month for hosting will go up but hey.. you're supporting the local economy (you seem to do that already heh) and the site speed should be faster for Brits.
To take this a step further, I also own the following domains: www.spicegirlslondonescorts.co.uk www.spicegirlsescortslondon.co.uk www.spicegirls-london-escorts.com www.spicegirlsescortslondon.com Surely there's potential here ... ?
The best thing is to 301 all the unused domains to the proper domain. Anything else is asking for problems. You won't suffer by having a .com rather than a .co.uk.
How long will it take for search engines to realize that you have move your hosting to local? Any experience?
I have a few websites hosted in singapore and the rankings appear in Singapore search results for all major search engines. A month ago, I've moved them to US servers, and the results are still showing in the local results. I would give it a few more months to be more firm about this but I location of the servers definitely have an influence on search engine results.
Of course if moving your hosting is not feasable at the moment - or you want to get listed quicker in the UK - there are a few other well known tricks you could try. For example mention the names of places in the UK, write 'colour' instead of 'color', hide any references you can find to the USA including ads from US companies. I myself doubt that these have anything but a very little effect, but it might be worth a try while you move the servers. Adsense lets you target UK only - hmm... might Google take your ad campaign targeting into account? Seeing as though they have access to all the data it does seem like a possibility. Afraid I don't know anything about Microsoft's ad programme but maybe they're thinking along the same lines.
Hosting is cheapest in US so far and .com is the most preferred domain name. So if I need to have a local site (Indian) and use some .co.in domain but host it in US (since BW costs here are just too expensive), will I get a better ranking ?
Yes anjanesh the domain name is a factor - but less of a factor than actual physical location. With a co.in domain you will also be listed in the SERPS when someone searches with the "show only results in india" button clicked in Google/Yahoo. I just checked out http://www.msn.co.in/ but it doesn't seem to have a "show only results in india" button - but maybe it is available to people in India. edit: OMG msn.co.in is so cool - at the bottom of the page is a 'matrimony search' , and there's a video ad stream at the top. Sweet!
I thought "show only results in india" would search for sites whose IPs are located in india. http://search.msn.co.in/results.aspx?... should be it.
None of those things work in terms of getting the search engines to recognise your site as being UK based. Otherwise my mentioning of UK and UK spelling of recognise in this thread would magically make this page appear in the UK SERPs The search engines look at only two things - IP (IE: is your server physically located in the UK) and domain extension (IE: a .uk extension is always seen as UK). Good luck with finding a reliable UK based adult host (I know of one - but you'll have to PM me, I don't think I can post a link here) for your .com site.
tryme1, as I said I don't think those factors have anything but a tiny effect in deciding what country your site is seen as belonging to. For example if a search in msn.co.uk finds the top (authentically UK) result has a relevance of only 25% and yours is 85% relevant, then those few factors might give you a listing in that particular search, just because the search engine recognises that relevance is more important than location in this case. It's not just my theory, better SEOs than myself have suggested it .
I've done some ummm "linking experiments" lately and have found the following to be true.. -- Yahoo! not only pays attention to the location of your server but it places a LOT of weight on the location of the sites that link to you. Getting links from UK hosted sites has caused huge jumps in the Yahoo! UK results for the target page even though the target is firmly in the US.