How does hosting affect SEO ranking – The Internet market is a tough competitive environment where every company strives to see their website on the first page of Google search results. Today we will talk about how hosting affects SEO and what to consider when choosing a hosting site.
Two of the seven hosting factors – uptime and download speed – can change from month to month, so the webmaster should check them regularly.
If you find a problem, contact your hosting company immediately. Don’t be sure they are aware of the slowdown and are taking action. This is one of the reasons why we do not recommend entering into long-term hosting contracts.
Paying for hosting monthly, you are not tied to three-year contracts and can break off relations if the standards “roll down”. In any case, losing a few hundred dollars is better than dooming your project to long-term SEO losses due to low-quality hosting.
Table of Contents
Let’s take a closer look at how hosting affect SEO ranking?
1. Uptime and downtime of the site
Downtime means the time that the site is unavailable due to problems with the server. Search robots will try to visit you several times a day. If this moment coincides with the downtime, the crawlers will consider the resource unavailable and move on.
If this situation has become the norm, the site is marked by search engines as unreliable, ranking worsens and traffic is reduced. PS do not want to display unreliable resources in search results, focusing on the needs of users.
The reverse concept of uptime is the time of continuous operation, the availability of servers. Even 99% uptime for a month means that the site will be down for about 7 hours! Ideally, uptime should aim for 100% of the time.
Unfortunately, modern technologies do not allow to give such guarantees.
2. Site loading speed
Search engines usually keep secrets of how their algorithms work, but in 2010 Google shared some interesting information. Website loading speed for PS is an important ranking factor. Considering that there are more than 200 of these factors, the impact of site speed is definitely not less than 0.5%.
You can check this indicator using Google PageSpeed tools, PingDom Tools, GTMetrix, etc. The causes for the decline are very separate.
Slow loading does not necessarily indicate hosting problems. The configuration and optimization of various elements of the site is the first thing to double-check.
If technically everything is fine, write to the hosting company.
Shared hosting is not very common, and one server rarely hosts hundreds of sites. However, this neighborhood can significantly slow down the download.
3. Server locations
Along with other SEO factors, search engines pay attention to the location of the site. For example, a user from the UK will be offered sites from British sites in the first place for certain queries.
To determine the location of the MS, a number of factors are used, including IP. This IP address is assigned based on the location of the hosting site.
Therefore, it is advisable for sites that are focused on the British user to rent hosting in the United Kingdom.
The downside is that for users from other countries, this resource will begin to appear lower in the search results. A double-edged sword!
In general, the ranking difference is not significant, but it exists.
4. Site security
Poor site security is detrimental to SEO.
Attackers can hack the site, create spam pages, generate a huge number of fake links. Google likes to penalize hacked resources.
Until you find the affected page and eliminate the threat, the PS will have time to lower the site’s rating. The consequences of hacking can be irreparable, up to malware infection and blacklisting of the site.
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Before choosing a hosting company, make sure that they have the appropriate security technologies and will help you remove malware.
An example of such technologies is the SiteLock malware detector, which continuously monitors a website, finds vulnerabilities and responds to attacks.
5. HTTPS/SSL support
The transition to the SSL security protocol is becoming a new Google ranking factor, which is officially confirmed. Although this is a minor element of SEO today, the role of SSL Certificate may increase significantly in the future.
Looking to migrate from HTTP to HTTPS? Talk to your hosting company about getting TSL/SSL certificates. This is an important factor for tomorrow.
6. Technical support
The site is down, time is frozen and you are in a panic. Such moments show the true value of your hosting. Before concluding a contract, make sure that the company provides round-the-clock technical support.
To learn more, take an interest in the experience of cooperation with other clients of the hosting company. Don’t trust big promises.
7. Say no to shared hosting
The so-called shared hosting, or virtual hosting, is the placement of several sites on one server. Although such a solution is considered very cheap and especially attractive to newcomers to the Internet market, we urge you to say “no” to it.
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Shared hosting offers to sacrifice site speed, security and other parameters in exchange for one thing – low cost.
By the way, Google has a negative attitude towards shared hosting, since this practice is contrary to SEO ethics. Experts consider security and spam to be the main disadvantage – cheap hosting companies cater for everyone, including spammers.
Inappropriate proximity directly affects the traffic and authority of the site.
Treat the choice of hosting responsibly, because the building begins with the foundation!