Now then, Here is a question that I've been mulling over for a few days. I've been contracted to do some SEO for a popular hotel. The thing is, I'm debating as to whether or not I need to move them over to a US IP address. Given that google likes to localize it's results and such, is it an accurate observation to make that it will categorize websites based on ip nationality? I have the customer ranking well for keywords, but i'm starting to debate whether or not I'll achieve global superiority with a US IP oppose to a local vietnamese one. What's your opinion?
The geographical location of the hosting server (the country centric IP) is a factor that Google takes into account for geo targeting its search result. Hence if the website is hosted in the US it would be a plus to rank in US. Having said that it would not mean that you would not rank on other version, the rankings would only be lower. There are ways to boast this lower ranking if you are looking to target the Global audience. Google.com I believe would be the most appropriate domain to promote on.
The main thing which counts for geo targeting is the domain ccTLD itself. Getting a .vn domain will increase the chances to get higher rankings in Google Vietnam of a search query from a Vietnamese IP. You also can tell Google to localize your site from Google Webmaster Tools.