[BNM] SEO and website location

[Alan Braddish]

Thank you Nick, that's most helpful.

Alan


-----Original Message-----
From: bnmlist-bounces at brightonnewmedia.org
[mailto:bnmlist-bounces at brightonnewmedia.org] On Behalf Of Nick Wilsdon
Sent: 10 December 2008 15:27
To: Brighton New Media
Subject: Re: [BNM] SEO and website location

Alan wrote:

>So if a web site has a UK IP address, would it tend to come up higher in
Google's result pages for someone searching from the UK?  I'm not talking
about using the "Pages from UK" radio button when searching.

Hi Alan,

Totally agree with Paul but - had these notes in my draft folder, might help
you:

Google does still take geographic location as one of the "signals" that
helps it place the site in the correct index. Other signals include:

- Domain TLD
- Doc language declaration
- Page language
- Geographic source of links
- Geographic setting in Google Webmaster Central

IMO it's more about Google placing the site in front of the correct audience
than a list that you should be checking off for top rankings. For example, a
co.uk would instantly tell Google that the site should be ranked well in
Google.co.uk. Having a UK server in that case is unnecessary, it's already
placed the site. However you may have a .FR domain and they are wondering if
you want this displayed to French, Canadian or Guadeloupian users. In this
case having the servers located in Guadeloupe would tell them that was
likely what you wanted.

So no - I don't think having UK servers is *in itself* a benefit to ranking
for a co.uk. It would be for a .com you wanted to perform better in the UK
SERPs.

Saying that though server speed is one of the factors in Google's "Quality
Score" (and in good user experience in general) - so if you are running PPC
campaigns it really is worth getting the fastest kit available. Sometimes
that means buying locally in the same country as your users. Lower quality
score means cheaper ads for you.

HTH


-- 
Best Regards

Nick Wilsdon

e3internet
http://www.e3internet.com

Skype: Nick_Wilsdon
Tel: +7 495 223 2329 (ext: 128)
Blog: http://nickwilsdon.com
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