Is your SEO affected by your web hosting–if so, how and to what extent? These are questions many website owners have. And, if your believe some of the ads from certain web hosting companies; the answer is that your web host can make a big difference. However, it’s been my experience that while your web hosting can have an effect on your SEO, you really need to look at what I call the direct and indirect effects your web hosting company can play in your website’s search engine optimization.
Direct SEO Effects of Web Hosting
The direct effects of web hosting on your SEO include availability and speed. Obviously, your site needs to be up and running for people to find and visit it. If your website is constantly down and unavailable for long periods of time, its popularity is naturally going to suffer and cause negative search engine results. Fortunately, if you choose one of the well-established, top rated web hosting companies, I highly doubt this will be a problem. If it is, I suggest you change web hosts—immediately!
As for speed, it’s generally agreed upon by the experts that a faster loading website ranks better in the search engines. I’ve found the main factors in determining how fast your website performs with a certain host are data center location and their servers and network architecture. You really do need to consider both. For example, InMotion Hosting offers their Max Speed Zone Technology with their business hosting plans. This feature lets you choose the data center closer to your area for faster performance. As you may know, I personally have used InMotion Hosting for years and have found the Max Speed Zones very beneficial. However, another reason why my sites at InMotion load and run fast is due their servers and network—which have recently been upgraded for even better performance.
An example where location alone did not result in a faster website was when I had one of my sites at HostGator. I wasn’t particularly pleased with the performance I was getting. When I moved the same exact site to iPage, I found it actually loaded and ran much faster—even though iPage’s data centers are on the east coast (farther away from my location than where HostGator’s data center was located). In this case, iPage’s servers and network were obviously better.
Indirect SEO Effects of Web Hosting
I refer to these items as indirect effects of SEO from your web hosting because they are really bonus features your web host can offer rather than specific functions of your hosting. Here, I’m referring to things like search engine submission services, easy integration with Google Analytics and Web Master Tools, and content management systems/site builders that generate search engine optimized pages. Now, you can acquire and implement these features on your own, but it’s nice if your web hosting company helps you out and provides them for you—another reason I refer to these items as indirect SEO effects from your web host.
So, while web hosting does affect your SEO in some ways, remember that most of the responsibility lies with you to do the majority of the work—with the expectation that you’re going to get fast and reliable website performance from your hosting company
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