Physical location of webserver

Is it relevant for SEO?

[dave741]

Let's say, I am from Europe and I am starting my on-line bussines in US, I will optimize my website.

Does the physical location of webserver affects the results?

In the other words: Is there any difference in SERPs (for searchers from US) if my webserver is located in US and not in Europe?

Thanks

[Brett_Tabke]

Yes, google can determine the geolocation of a site by:

- top level domain of the site
(.co.uk vs .com)
- location of server farm holding website
(if there are 4 hops into london before the site load on a simple tracert, there is a good chance the site is on a london based host).
- location of the server.
(Where is the last IP location registered?)
- where is the company that owns the server?
(If the whois says it is in the uk, then it is a good chance the pages are from the uk)
- back links.
(if there xx% back links from .co.uk sites, then there is a good chance that the page/site is in the uk.
- page content.
(if the page contains various references to the uk, then it is probably in the uk).
- about page address.
(Most bigger sites have their location listed on their about page. As we have seen, Google is quite adept at pulling addresses off pages.)
- language.
(If the page is in chinese, then is is a good bet the page is about china).

As you can see, it is a pretty complex algo that goes into determining what results are returned for what countrys/geo targeting.

So to answer your question - yes webserver location can certainly matter.

[MHes]

But.....

A searcher in The US is doing a worldwide search by default, having no US specific search to use. Therefore in this case server location does not apply because it is a level playing field.... or has things changed?

[Brett_Tabke]

All the major countries in Europe have their own local Google version. Thus, they can not see the same index that we see in the states unless they make it their default.

[indigojo]

In my opinion it's really important the new MSN SE, almost ridiculous