Would Canadian IP address affect US rankings?

[wfernley]

Hi everyone,

I have a website that is targeted for US customers however it is hosted on a Canadian server with a Canadian IP address. I was wondering if this would effect my rankings for US customers. Does it make a difference where your website is hosted?

Would the Webmaster Tools Geographic Target setting still promote me high in rankings when set to USA if it is still hosted in Canada?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[tedster]

Is your domain one of the international TLDs - such as .com, .org, .net and so on? If it is and if you have backlinks from US sites, you should do OK.

I'd say only set the geo-targeting in WMT if you really don't want anything BUT US traffic.

Are you currently having a problem you're trying to diagnose?

[wfernley]

Hi Tedster,

Thank you for your reply.

The website is a .com and has many backlinks from US based websites.

I don't want to change the geo-targeting because as you said, I would only get US traffic.

Would switching it to a US server have any benefit? The WHOIS data is a Canadian address. Does Google take this into account?

Thanks again!