Is the hosting location really important? The hosting location is always a cause for discussion. The German hosters are too expensive for many new website operators, which is why they would rather take a US host.
But is this a good idea? What role does the hosting location play in the success of a website? In the following I will analyze the influence of the hosting location on the Google ranking and the loading time. I will also show you a useful tool that illustrates the importance of the hosting location.
Is the hosting location really important?
This question is important because too often hosting is chosen solely for financial reasons. However, there are many factors that should be considered. This also includes the location of your own server. In the following I will go into 2 possible effects of the hosting location in more detail.
Hosting location as ranking factor
It has been discussed for a long time whether the hosting location has an influence on the ranking. However, this has not really been clarified until today. It is clear that Google can determine the location of a website quite well. Above all, the IP address provides important information.
But does the location really have SEO relevance for the local region? According to John Müller of Google, this is usually not the case. According to his statement, the location is rarely a concrete factor, but he has not ruled it out completely.
The statement is already a little older and in times of massive spam this cannot be excluded today at least for certain regions of the world (e.g. Russia). But the bottom line is that it doesn’t seem to be a really important ranking factor.
However, there are other factors that Google uses when evaluating a website, such as the Top Level Domain. In conjunction with other factors, location can have an impact.
A small example with 2 websites. A website has a .de end and the location of the server is in Germany. The second website has a .net extension and the hosting location is in the USA. Even though both websites contain German texts, one can well imagine that Google probably classifies the first website as slightly more relevant for Germany. (The analysis of the content, the backlinks etc. is left out now.)
More important is the loading time, which was only recently officially classified as a ranking factor by the Google Speed Update. If a website is too slow, this has an effect on the ranking of the website. Because mobile use has increased so much, loading time is becoming increasingly important.
But the loading time is also important for the usability of a website. The conversion rate is strongly influenced by the loading time, as studies show again and again. The perceived loading time varies considerably depending on where the server is located.
Loading times Differences
The loading times are therefore much more important and have a greater influence. You can see very well the differences in loading times when analyzing with the Sucuri loading time tool. This tool loads a website from various locations around the world and determines the loading time. For good loading times, check out the offer from http://www.peer-server.com/en/vultr/.
Is the hosting location really important?
My server of DomainFactory is located in Germany and you can clearly see that the loading time in this country is extremely good. But also in other parts of Europe the loading time is okay. In North America, on the other hand, there are already longer loading times, some of which are already marked red in the evaluation. The situation in Asia is then quite bad.
This analysis shows very well, which effects the hosting location has on the loading time and thus also on the ranking or e.g. the conversion rate, if you have your server far away from the target country.
So if you want to reach the users in a certain region with your website, you should also choose the hosting location there.
If you want to reach users in different regions of the world, you can use a CDN (Content Delivery Network). There are large CDN providers who have servers all over the world and, depending on the user, deliver the website from a server in the respective region. The performance is therefore very good everywhere. However, for the normal website operator this is not necessary in most cases.
Conclusion
The information shows that the hosting location probably has no direct influence on the ranking, but an indirect one. The ranking can be influenced by the loading time and also a little by Google’s assessment.
The hosting location definitely has an influence on the loading times and these are also very important nowadays. Especially with business websites, this has a strong influence on sales. That’s why you should choose your hosting location carefully and rather think regionally. You can find information about the location in my webhosting comparison. What are your experiences with the hosting location and what tips can you give?