What can a host do to improve a site rankings

[digicam]

That is the question, what can your host do in terms of server setup to help a site rank higher and of course what can he do accidently to kill a ranking.

I am refering to a Windows IIS host as that is what I am most interested in.

[Rocknroll]

Host typically cannot do much to improve the ranking of a site BUT there are few things that can hurt it. These are the few things that I would look for to ensure that hosting doesn't hurt the ranking -

1. Up time - make sure that the servers are up when search engine crawlers visit
2. URL Re-write - URL rewrite engine is turned on so that you can make your URLs search engine friendly (if you have complex, dynamic URLs)

Anything else experts?

[texasville]

>>>> am refering to a Windows IIS host as that is what I am most interested in.<<<<

They need to install isapi rewrite and put a 301 redirect to eliminate all dup content issues concerning canonical issues..re: www vs non-www.

[Solution1]

If a host has a significant amount of spam sites on the same server, your rankings might get the same treatment as those spam sites.

[digicam]

hi, I can easily use an ISAPI rewrite on my site but I can only rewrite my productdetail page URL by adding the Catalogue number as the static parameter, I cannot rewrite the page metatitle.

So I can go for:-

www.mysite.com/123232product.htm

rather than

www.mysite.com/a-cool-product.htm

Is there much point with a rewrite in this case?