How important to host in Australia if I want to rank on google.com.au

[mitsu]

hi there currently hosting my site in australia
but having troyubles with host
so need to move my site
its a load cheaper to host ibn the USA than it is here in australia
but im worried about how my rankings will be affected if i move the site to a USA server

its a .com not a .com.au
too late to change it as the domain is years old

is there any data out there on what percentage of people click then "Website from Australia" radio button on google.com.au

because im led to beleive with a .com and hosted in the usa it will no longer show up in a search for "websites from australia"
anyone know ?

thanks for any assistance you can provide me!

C

[louieramos]

Hosting a site in Australia has some factors in ranking your site in Google.com.au but it won't prevent you from getting rank higher really, my site is a .com and its hosted in the US and I am #3 in Google.com.au for a decent keyword.

[mitsu]

grea thanks for the feedback
yeah the research im doing seems to sugget it doesnt factor that much
so i able to move my australian .com site to the usa server for cheaper hosting :)

anyone else got any feedback on geolocation factors in search rankings?

[zehrila]

It does have its effects, if your niche market is australia and your customer base is from same place, then i would recommend hosting your site with in australia.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

I would recommend that you should keep the hosting within Australia especially when the TLD is .com and NOT .com.au as change might cause trouble.

[Whitey]

You can always set your geo targeting in WMT to Australia to rank there. Hosting in the US will indeed be cheaper.

[tedster]

Given that you are already ranking well on google.com.au, I'd guess - and it is a guess - that even a change of hosting location would not affect your rankings.

At least in the best of all worlds (which this certainly is not) that should be the way it goes. Google has records of your site's performance that show Australian users appreciate it. I assume you also have backlinks from other Australian sites - and that should help, too. Is your page content also very specific to Australia? If so, that would be another plus.

If you were not already ranking well in Australia, then I would definitely advise you not to make the change. The two strongest location signals are 1) the ccTLD and 2) hosting location. But in the current situation, and especially if the hosting expense is critical to you, then I would consider the change to Us hosting -- and of course monitor the situation very closely.

If you decide to make the change, please let us know how things work out.

[mitsu]

thanks guys!
great feedback
i am going to make the change and then will report back...

thanks again!

[Marvin Hlavac]

I'm not as experienced as the people who have given you the above feedback, but I would suggest also considering the fact that your site's load time may likely be faster for your Australian audience if it stays in Australia, rather than if it moves oversees.

[rainborick]

If you decide to change hosts, be sure that you've selected a Geographic Target in the Webmaster Tools console well ahead of time. If it's appropriate, sign up for Google's Local Business Center, and the corresponding services for Yahoo! and Bing as well. Post the complete address of the business on your most important pages. Since these are things Google looks at, you'll want to have them all working in your favor.

[Whitey]

... good point Marvin

your site's load time may likely be faster for your Australian audience if it stays in Australia

You know more than you give yourself credit for.

[mitsu]

yes it will be a bit slower
but i dont think its much an issue as the site is prety slim
have moved the site will now keep an eye on rankings and report back
thanks again guys!

[piatkow]

If you host overseas you must take into account the resilience of the connection between the countries.

I don't know anything about international telecomms to/from Oz but I have known of connectivity issues for people elsewhere hosting in the US when there has been damage to a major undersea cable.

[tedster]

I regularly check connection and download times for North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. I regularly see that a US hosted site takes a performance hit for Australian and Asian users. For example, a 1 or 2 second page load time from the US will go up to over 4 seconds, even though Europe only goes up a half second or so.

[HuskyPup]

its a load cheaper to host ibn the USA than it is here in australia

As a matter of interest, in percentage terms, just how much cheaper is it to warrant such a change of country?

If it is a commercial business site or even if you are self-employed surely it is a 100% tax-deductible expense?

I have no idea of Ozzie taxation but would have thought that it is on similar lines to many other countries when it comes to this kind of expenditure!?!?

[anallawalla]

For a shared host, the difference between the US and Aussie pricing could be as little as $5-10 each month.