Server Question.

[martin001]

Hi all

I have a dedicated server in Germany. Great spec, and empty right now. Very good price too.

I was going to moved my uk-targeted sites to the server and save some money each month, but then had concerns how the server IP not being UK-based, might affect the search engine listings on the current sites.

Any opinions anyone?

Thanks

M

[MASSEY]

It's supposed to be better to have uk sites on uk servers but I have seen many contradictions to this, I don't think there is a proper answer

[Clinton]

Are you signed up to Google Webmaster Tools? If you have a UK ccTLD and set the country in WT as UK then there seems to be little impact having the server outside of the UK.

[Dwebs-Ltd]

Are you signed up to Google Webmaster Tools? If you have a UK ccTLD and set the country in WT as UK then there seems to be little impact having the server outside of the UK.

Not sure how this will work with google's new speed testing e.g. are they testing speed from a node closest to the target audience. That would mean sites hosted outside the UK would be slower and may appear lower down the search results list.

[jamie1183]

I found that when I moved our website to a UK Server the search results improved slightly for UK searches in google. Might have been by chance but I would say a .co.uk, on a UK Server would be better than on a server outside the UK

[stugster]

The weighting Google places on the IP location and the time a site takes to load is very small as far as I'm aware. The only time you're going to experience search engine issues is when someone does a local search (sites in the UK) - Google might deem a site with a .co.uk TLD but a German IP to be less important than that of a site hosted within the country of the search.

Have you had a look at www.ovh.co.uk? They're rock solid (if you don't mind arguing with their technical support guys now and again). They're hosted in France, but will quite happily give you a range of UK IPs for a small fee.

[Paul Norman]

The answer to the question is that the difference is marginal, and there are far bigger factors weighing in on search term results.

[Scootek]

Most people say it's better for the server to have a UK IP address if it's targeted for the UK market. However, recently I have heard a lot of people say that it no longer matters.