Does the choice of a hosting affect the SEO-indicators of the site? When choosing a hosting, many webmasters are interested in this question. But, for obtaining the ambiguous answer to this question, it is worthwhile to examine the situation in detail and draw independent conclusions. As you know, every online marketer is anxious to see their sites over the Google search page. And for adopting this, they are working on different SEO techniques to rank well on search engines. Sites that work smoothly and are fast enough to bound with users can maintain positive organic performance.
Like voice search, featured snippets, mobile-first index and other ranking factors excite the website, there is one another factor, which is known as web hosting. It greatly impacts your site’s uptime and your page speed. The web host you opt for determines the overall consistency of the site and helps in offering organic visitors. If you want to prevent server errors and page timeouts, plus also want to stop users from bouncing back to Google, then you need to adopt a solid and stable web host. For example, the experts of an SEO agency in Melbourne will help you in choosing the web hosting company.
Ultimately, you will receive a web host that will greatly support your organic efforts. High-quality hosting affects the operation of the site and its position in search engines. So, let’s have a look at the following detail on how web hosting affects the SEO of your website.
Table of Contents
How Web Hosting Affects SEO for your Website
High Uptime Guarantee
Users and search engines access the site. In order for search engines to regularly and efficiently index your site and increase its position in the search results, it is important to achieve high uptime. The percentage of uptime when the system is working is called UPTIME (uptime). This parameter for good hosting is at least 99.98%. This means that the site is always available, so search bots can visit the resource at any time and carry out their work. High site uptime is largely the provider’s concern (high-quality technical support, protection against attacks, powerful equipment and quick response). The inaccessibility of the page during a visit by its search robot leads to a fall in the position of your site.
Some providers offer an optional service level agreement (SLA). This agreement describes the responsibility of the hosting provider for the lack of access to the site. Such an agreement is an additional guarantee of quality, as the hoster is confident in the quality of its services. Free Host hosting provider guarantees the availability of the site at 99.99%, which will certainly have a positive impact on the promotion of the resource. You can determine the level of availability on the Free Host server during the free trial period. For a large high-traffic web project, it is better to consider a virtual dedicated server service or a physical server rental.
Geographical Location
Yes, the geographic location of the server may affect search results. In addition to a number of other factors like content, backlinks, search engines also consider the location of the website when choosing a placement in their ranking. For example, if the person seeking is located in the UK, then search engines will usually show sites located in the UK. They use several indicators like the IP address of your site in order to find out the location of your site. This IP address is assigned to your site depending on the location of the server on which it is located. So, if your hosting company is located in a particular area, then the traffic of your site will increase when people of that specific location enter your chosen keywords. The other side of the coin is that your site will be ranked lower in search results when these same queries entered in other countries.
The Speed of Loading Sites
Search engines take into account many factors when ranking, but in 2010, Google openly said that page loading speed is one of the most important ranking factors. True, this is just one of the 200 factors, and therefore it has a very insignificant effect, but you should pay attention to it anyway. Owners of sites that have a large number of graphic elements and dynamic blocks should think about moving the site geographically closer to the target users. But after you make sure that there are no problems with the technical part and your web pages are still loading slowly, you should ask your web hosting company to move the site to another server.
A common occurrence for a website is sharing server resources with hundreds of other sites. And, the larger the number of sites on the server, the slower your site will load. Download speed can be significantly improved by moving your site to a less loaded, or even to a dedicated server. Most search engines rank sites higher with minimal page load times.
SSD Hosting
SSD stands for Solid-State Disk Drive. It is believed that web hosting companies that use SSD offer a faster service. The hard drive is based on the usual method of storing data using a spinning disk, while the SSD works with the magnetic coating method. In fact, they both are designed to store data. SSD hosting results in faster and more reliable hosting for your website than servers with traditional hard-disk drives (HDDs). Reliability is another factor to bear in mind.
Hosting Options
There are several companies that offer optional value-add that can upgrade your site. Here are some SEO-friendly ones that you have to look at:
- Automatic Backups: If something ever goes wrong, then you must have to adopt a site to restore the data quickly.
- SSL: HTTPS has been a ranking factor for years now. If you still have not transitioned to a secure site, then you need to get your act together. Make sure your host supports SSL. Some even include them or are free with your hosting package.
- Multiple Hosting Plans: As your site grows, your hosting needs are likely to change. Eventually, your traffic numbers may be big enough to warrant switching to your own dedicated server. This transition will be easier if you do not have to switch hosting providers at the same time.
Positive Reviews
It is recommended that you take a few minutes to read online reviews before signing up with the host. Through these reviews, you are able to gather a lot of valuable information. So, look for hosts that appear again and again on the top web hosts lists, and study the reviews to verify that the hosting plan you are considering is likely to furnish you what you necessitate.
While reading the reviews, pay special attention to how people talk about their support. In any case, if your sites go down, make sure that the support team of your choosing company is able to fix it immediately. A good host will offer 24/7 support for free. So, check the working hours of your potential host’s support team and understand how specifically these will be able to get in touch with them. Do not forget to check out the social profiles.
Bottom Line
The choice of hosting is a very important decision, and in this matter, there is no need to chase the cheapness. Your choices can adversely affect your site and hinder all marketing efforts. There are many good hosting companies available that can solve all types of mistakes and provide an effective ranking on the search engine. This will be better than seeing how all the promotion efforts go down the drain.
Choosing free hosting will help you in promoting your site in search engines. For example, the best SEO services in Melbourne provide a recommendation on web hosting for ranking high. Host providers offer test periods through which you can evaluate the quality of their services and determine whether it suits your needs.