Implications of server location, domain extension, etc

[olly]

Hi everyone

We current host our network of sites with .com as the TLD and we compete for results predominantly in country X.

Our server has an IP which corresponds to an IP range which belongs to country X, but it is actually located in the United States.

Is it possible for Google to pick up the real address of the server or will having a "country X" IP do the trick?

Could the above be adversely affecting our rankings in anyway?

Thanks

[tedster]

I currently work with exactly that situation, and I've never seen a problem. If you have any dooubt, I'd say set the geotargetting for country X inside your Webmaster Tools. But if you are not seeing a current problem, then don't make changes based on a theoretical concern.

[olly]

Do you think setting geotargetting in WMT would help?

I've been contemplating this from another angle. Presently 75% of our visitors are from Country X. The problem is that hosting in Country X is very expensive, bandwidth here is not cheap. It would probably amount to about $1250 per month to host directly in the country. Do you think this is worth paying for the user experience? Local sites load far faster than international sites.

I'm not sure how much load times affect conversions. Any thoughts?

[HuskyPup]

Local sites load far faster than international sites.

Where the heck is country x?

I have been to many, many countries and for the past couple of years it has been very rare I have experienced many slow-loading sites in "industrialised/populated" areas.

Are you sure that it is not just your location or ISP?

I have experienced problems at the "end of the line" scenario even in the UK for all sorts of sites.

[olly]

It is definitely not the location/ISP. Country X is populated/industrialised, but far behind when it comes to internet connectivity. Bandwidth costs approximately $8 for 1Gb. The reason behind this comes back to limited bandwidth in and out the country, a lot of which is due to monopolistic telecommunications up until a few years ago.

Hosting locally in country X would amount to far faster loading speeds for local visitors - international sites definitely take far longer to load. I'm not sure how badly international visitors accessing the site (hosted in country X) would be affected though.