Your choice of web host has an affect on your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign. This post looks at what factors matter for SEO when you choose a host, and how you can use this information to find a host that’s right for you.

Why does hosting matter?

Search engines look at a number of factors when they rank websites, and these are aimed at making sure:

• the right information is delivered
• it’s reliable
• it’s relevant to the user
• it’s delivered quickly

Hosting directly impacts the last three points. Also, in order to setup your website in the best possible way for SEO you need to be able to access some key features that are not available on all hosting platforms.

Reliability and Speed

The first thing to ensure is that your web host is able to deliver pages quickly and reliably. If pages are slow to load up you will be penalised – Google wants to make sure its users get to content quickly. 

Geographic Location

Where your site is hosted has an impact on how well you will rank for certain terms and geographical searches. For example, if your server is in Germany and you are optimising for the keyphrase "pizza delivery nottingham", you are less likely to be relevant to the search engine spiders as a company that hosts their website in the UK.

Where your site is hosted within the country is less important, just make sure that if you are offering a service specific to one location, you are better off hosting in the country where you provide that service.

Server Options

Finally, make sure your host allows for the following:

• 301 and 302 redirects
• Custom .htaccess files
• Custom 404 error pages
• mod_rewrite and mod_alias directives
• Access to raw logs

The key thing when choosing a hosting platform is to test all of the above during your trial period or within the first fourteen days. If you find it doesn’t meet your needs, swapping early will save you costs down the road.

Ben