US IP Address Affect a .co.uk's Ranking?

[internetheaven]

US hosting is so, so, so much cheaper than UK hosting but I have never moved my .co.uk sites over to US servers because I have been labouring under the impression that a US IP address would affect my Google.co.uk rankings.

Have Google made any statement regarding this or are we left to speculate on this issue also?

Thanks
Mike

[internetheaven]

No-one know or no-one willing to comment?

[glengara]

Haven't read anything on this from G, my own guess would be no.

[sobole]

Hi,
For what's it's worth, we are based in the US and our site is hosted in Canada. It hurts our US ranking and helps our Canadian ranking. We are currently moving it to the US.

Sobole

[wheelie34]

Mike

I have a server in the states on the 69. IP block, NO problems ever, sites on there around 5 - 6 years already.

I also have 2 UK servers for my .com's as they did and would still suffer.

.co.uk's all registered with UK postal addresses and contact details, no issues to report.

[internetheaven]

.co.uk's all registered with UK postal addresses and contact details, no issues to report.

Interesting, you say that like you have some belief that your whois info is used for ranking purposes in regional search engines. What has given you this belief?

[wheelie34]

What has given you this belief?

Reading WebmasterWorld :0

[Robert Charlton]

These two discussions, about factors affecting similar or dupe international sites in English, might be of help...

Linking a .ca to a .com with same content
[webmasterworld.com...]

Duplicate Content on Localised Search
[webmasterworld.com...]

They touch on the question of hosting, which I'm assuming Google looks at in relation to other localization factors to determine whether actual international presence is involved.

[HuskyPup]

US hosting is so, so, so much cheaper than UK hosting

You want quality hosting, cheap, slow, unreliable hosting is available on both sides of the pond!

If you want to be 100% sure your co.uk is recognised as being UK then host in the UK, and ensure the server IS in the UK and not in Germany or elsewhere.

[FrankWeb]

I recently started a new domain, which I want to target on the UK. Results are to be really determined but I have switched to UK hosting.

Google UK does seem to favor my site more then .com

I am sure it helps, but just a litle bit. There are more important factors such as getting links from UK related sites.

[wheel]

I had a US website hosted in Canada. Moved to US hosting, no measurable difference in serps (though there may have been other factors).

Had another US website hosted in Canada. Ranking fine in both Google.ca and Google.com. Set up a Google webmaster account and told them it was a US website, not a US one. I was hoping it would help it in the US rankings, and remove if from the Canadian. In fact, what Google's done so far is absolutely nothing - no change in either Serp.

So while I'd like to beleive that Google.ca or Google.co.uk are from Canada and the UK, and that Google.com is US, I'm actually buying into the idea that Google.com is for international results.

[pppaustralia]

I am based in Melbourne Australia and have hosted .com.au's in both the U.S. & Australia, no drop at all in serps with u.s. hosting. One of my .com.au's actually showed a sizeable increase in traffic when moved to the u.s. and is competing head to head with major aussie news organizations even though it is hosted in the u.s.

[briggidere]

you wont have a problem moving a .co.uk over as the SE's see your tld and know it's uk based.

If you had a .com targeting the UK, thats completely different.

[Greenvalley]

I have sites both sides of atlantic
Lots of sites there is a difference especially on younger sites.
Eventually this disappears, as long as you use English UK spelling etc.
If you go into G tools there is a section so you can show where you want to target too.

[jastra]

There's a hidden advantage to note:

I have a couple of .co.uk sites that are hosted in the US. When I actively maintained them (optimizing and fresh content) they both searched #1 for various terms in the UK Google. The sites were about financial services for the UK only.

But I noticed a .com or two that were UK-hosted and which ranked very highly in both the UK Google and the US Google. .com sites hosted in the UK have the distinct advantage that they can search well in both the UK Google AND the US Google. My .co.uk sites never did search well in the US Google.

Wish I'd noticed that before I went with the .co.uk TLD. I believe I'd gotten more traffic. I admit however that I've never seen stats on how many UK residents use the "Search the Web" function vs. "UK pages only." Anybody know?

[superclown2]

I have several hundred .uk sites on US servers. It doesn't seem to affect them at all for G but Y! seems to downgrade them so I make sure that all my important sites are on UK servers. A number of UK service providers are getting more realistic about pricing though so I'm switching a lot of sites over when I can get a good deal, just in case - we never know what the next algo change will target.

[superclown2]

"Wish I'd noticed that before I went with the .co.uk TLD. I believe I'd gotten more traffic. I admit however that I've never seen stats on how many UK residents use the "Search the Web" function vs. "UK pages only." Anybody know?"

I checked a whole stack of stats files recently and I found that about 20% seem to use the "UK pages only" function.

[cgiscripts4u]

I recently moved my .co.uk site from UK hosting to US hosting as I could get more for less and have seen absolutely no difference in the serps.

[jaffstar]

Do some research, search for keyword keyword in G.uk vs G.com and you will notice the difference. UK IPS do far better in the UK and Same for G.com.

Been down this road ages ago and moved sites accordingly

[Angelis]

No problem from where I am, my server is in Florida on the 72. IP block and I have no problems with .CO.UK sites.

[johnser]

Webmaster tools geo-targeting option. It works.

I've a .com hosted in US now showing on "UK-only" serps.
Geo-targeting option updated about 6-8 weeks ago.

[johnlim9988]

I have a site which is hosted in usa but the ranking in google.com is not good.

But the ranking in google.uk is very good, even for very competitive terms......

I don't know why...............

[UKSEOer]

The site that I work changed IP in May, to a new one. It was registered as UK, but Google hadn't updated their IP to country mapping. Therefore we dropped out of UK SERPs for 2 weeks until Google fixed it after prompting.

The first pass at ascertaining where your site is from is TLD, then IP, then on-page indicators like postal addresses, phone numbers, even spelling of certain words (colour/color). So if you're on a .com and a US IP, you might see yourself fall out of UK SERPs. You can set your target in your WEbmaster Tools account on Google. I'd set that first, wait a little while, then change hosting.

[edited by: UKSEOer at 5:39 pm (utc) on Jan. 28, 2008]