IP location and SEO

where should I locate my server

[followgreg]

Hi,

My case study: I want to set up a site in another country (and another continent)
Should I buy a hosting with an IP in that particular country or the coutry domain extension (example: .ca, .de, .mx etc...) will be enough to ensure that search engines will understand?

A few months ago I would have said yes, but now I'm not that sure...

someone has a clear adia or tested it already?

[bill]

It really depends on the country and language market you're targeting. In most cases the argument that either a local domain or local hosting will be sufficient for the SEs to determine that your site is targeting the local market. In most markets I'm not sure you have to go to the extremes of having both.

[Leosghost]

greg ..we live in the same place ..and the answer is emphatically yes ..the converse also applies ..hosted in the US for a french language site is the kiss of death since jagger ..mitigate to survive ..

[followgreg]

What you're saying is very interesting Leosghost, so you think that a site now needs (for example) a .fr and at the same time being hosted in france to be relevant for GG?

That sucks man :) considering hosting prices and quality in Fr.

Still, Jagger is a bit of a catastrophe update, couldn't it be due to some other factors?

If others have also experienced that, i would love to hear some feedback! :)

[Leosghost]

I hear you about hosting prices ..however just one or two landing pages out of a site will be enough to give somewhere to "g"..more important is where your links are coming from ..non french hosted links are worth near squat to a french hosted site since jagger began ..like wise all links inbound to anywhere that is not in "g"'s eyes in their geo area ..

saw it coming ..Y and MSN played around with this about 6 months ago ..

if you have a lot of sites to look after ..a server .in every geo area seems to be the way to go ..after that you can decide how many pages of how many sites you want to place on each server ..course you must control the server tho ..but even at our silly prices a 40 gig dedi can give you an edge ..not all of any one site has to be there ..

[followgreg]

Well that's very interesting too, I'm talking about the incoming links from other areas.
The average webmaster in FR doesn't seem to hear much about link exchange yet so I was more or less planning to do it with "others".

I don't need a dedi though, I will set my mind on a vps with a whopping 400 mb! because that's all my wallet can afford so far. For the same amount of money I would get 15 Gb with a US host ...life is unfair and GG has no mercy for average website owner :-)

Actually since I mentioned the average webmaster, I really, but r-e-a-l-l-y wonder when google will get a grab on our national SEO companies best practice: cloaking pages with a light touch of hidden text here and there!

[Leosghost]

national SEO companies best practice: cloaking pages with a light touch of hidden text here and there!

Thats one of the things which makes one wonder at the real ability to spot this in "the algo"( as opposed to the "dont do this we will penalise you" warnings from google about such practises ) like you say our market is full of link farms and single gifs and no script ..has been for years ..never seen even one update shake em out from almost any sector in french language one cares to look at ..

If it was all automated as is the "story" it would be a cinch to clean house ..I can see redirected domain names stuff from ulead leading to personal pages on wanadoo that have no more than 10 backs links from other personal pages about hobbie subjects ..no traffic ( onsite counters from the free host say usually "vous etes le 530 visiteur"!depuis 3 ans!) and yet some of them are sitting at number 1 for a sector on a one word keyword with over one million founds in serps ..

Either "g" is blind in certain geo areas cos it doesnt want to use processing resources in relatively small sectors ..France being in internet terms small ..

or

Certain aspects of the supossedly existing algo factors don't actually exist and it's the level of competing pages that swings wether you get a perceived penalty or not ..

Apart from the geo related incomings issue that I see recently tho ..the french SEO experience is that you can get away in google with the kind of things that were common in altavista 5 years ago ..

And what they "g" are letting their adsense users get away with here is haircurling to all those of you who worry about "walking the line"..

The penalties for interlinking aspect is already hard enough to see in action here as most of the big corporations are owned by the same big banks or each other ..or the same huge parisian SEO firms handle the same accounts and just link farm all their clients without telling them ..doesn't seem to harm anyone here ..like the "far west" ..

Much as tho it peeves me to say it MSN and Yahoo have a more class act here compared to google since at least last easter ..

Something else ..the link out from Hollywood in the update thread ....well "g" appears to apply the exact opposite to that in France ..the more flowerey and hyperbolic the language on page ..the higher the position ..

The big sites like TF1 always remind me visually of the red light area of an asian city ..more blink and flash than a vegas slot machine ..and they love it!

[followgreg]

the french SEO experience is that you can get away in google with the kind of things that were common in altavista 5 years ago ..

That is so true. The french SEO companies (read "societes de referencement") are using dirty tricks for years and the most powerful of them have never been penalized at all.

It's like Google disregards spam reports from France on purpose, or there is someone on Google staff that deletes spam feedbacks before they reach destination, just amazing!

Spam in France is so common that for any competitive keyword you must find at the very least 20 to 50% of sites on page 1 that use dirty tricks.

So far GG has almost 80% of market shares and this is terrible, Y! and MSN provide far better results though.

Is Google scared of throwing the ultimate penalty on French "referencement" companies? What the hell is this?
These guys even sign with a link to their sites from their cloaking page and go with no penalties at all for years, so Mr Googleguy, scared or what?

At the same time I totally agree with you concerning the rules of PPC, same thing, you can do almost whatever you want there.

Google France SERP = Welcome to my garbage.