I'm planning on building my first site that is not targeted for the U.S. Can someone please explain: 1. How important is it (SEO-wise) to have a domain of *.countrytld (i.e. .co.uk)? 2. If I have the right country domain tld, do I need to find hosting in that country or will the SEs recognize the country from the tld? 3. Any other advice/tips?!?! Thanks!
If your targetting the UK market, go with .co.uk you will look more credible. That way you also dont have to worry about getting UK web hosting as you'll find you will show up in the local UK SERPs just by having the domain name..
If you are targeting customers in thw US/worldwide then go with .com/.net/.biz. If you want to target customers in the UK then use a .co.uk and make sure you host in the UK. This will give your site a good boost in the regional version of Google and you won't have to work as hard to get good local results.
The domain extension doesn't make much difference for seo - its the hosting location that matters. To target a UK audience you 100% have to be hosted in the UK. Also make sure your backlinks are from UK hosted sites as well.
I'm pretty sure that they both make a difference, I've had a .co.uk hosted in the US get better then expected ranking in the regional SERPS.
Yes that helps as well, you should try to do both if possible, but the server location isn't the only factor.
Hard to beat a #1 ranking I'm just trying to imply using US based hosting is OK. Do you realise how much aussie hosting is! If your doing everything else right the location of your servers becomes pretty irrelevant.
I asked if hosting location mattered a while back and the general opinion at the time was that it didnt. A UK host maybe based in the UK but its servers maybe based in america or anywhere due to it being more expensive for bandwidth etc over here. Does anyone 100% know whether regional hosting makes a difference or not?
Nobody knows 100% as at best the Google algorithim can only be guessed at. I believe the Google uses either factor to determine a sites location. Some UK companies buy .com domains and some host overseas using .co.uk I think the only problem arises when you do both and you'll be flagged as a US site by default.
Hosting and domain extension will both have an effect but as with everything related to SEO the effects are not huge. SEO is about getting 90% of the factors in your favour and then reaping the rewards. When we talk about hosting its nothing to so with whether its a US hosting company or a UK one, its the specific location of the web server your site is hosted on that matters. www.digitalpoint.com/tools/website-country/
I think his point was that many hosting companies portray themselves as UK based, but in fact the servers a based elsewhere. Unless you're a particuarly savvy webmaster you might not think to check the exact IP location of your host.