Does type of hosting affect SEO rankings?
-
Hello,
I was wondering if hosting on shared, versus VPS, versus dedicated ... matter at all in terms of the rankings of Web sites ... given that all other factors would be exactly equal.
I know this is a big question with many variables, but mainly I am wondering if, for example, it is more the risk of resource usage which may take a site down if too much traffic and therefore make it un-crawlable if it happens at the moment that a bot is trying to index the site (factoring out the UX of a downed site).
Any and all comments are greatly appreciated!
Best regards,
Mark -
Hi Tom,
Thank you very much for the fast reply and helpful answer!
I have also posted a couple CDN conversations on:
1. https://moz.com/community/q/what-is-the-effect-of-cloudflare-cdn-on-page-load-speeds-hosting-ip-location-and-the-ultimate-seo-effect
2. https://moz.com/community/q/what-happens-with-seo-when-a-site-is-served-via-cloudflare-cfnIf you feel like adding your thoughts there as well (entirely up to you) I would value them immensely.
Kind regards,
Mark -
Hi Mark
It certainly can make a difference, for some of the reasons that you've alluded to. If we break hosting's influence on ranking down to its 3 core factors, we have:
- Security
- Location (which ties into:)
- Speed
Security is pretty basic - the more at risk your site is to being hacked, the bigger the risk of that hack happening and a drop in rankings occurring (which can then be very hard to regain). If you're managing the server yourself, make sure you take all of the necessary steps. If you're using managed solutions, vet the provider as much as possible.
Location - this is a two-fold factor. There is some correlation (albeit it is not a big one) that if you had two equal websites, one in the UK and one in the US, and you're trying to rank in Google UK, the site hosted in the UK might rank a bit better. It's not huge, but worth keeping in mind. What is more of a factor in server location is the actual location of the server itself and where your typical users (or target users) are based in the world. The closer your users are to your server's datacentre, the faster the server response is likely to be. Faster websites are happy websites. That leads us to the main point on:
Speed. As a (very general) rule, the more allocated RAM and bandwidth, plus the greater server's processing capabilties, the faster it is likely to be. Typically, this means that dedicated servers (where it's you and only you taking 100% of the server's resources) will perform better than a dedicated VPS (100% of the resource, just less resource), shared VPS, or shared hosting. The bigger your site becomes and the bigger bandwidth footprint it creates, as it were, the more you'll need a server that can handle that. **There is a good correlation between site speed and organic rankings. **If the server is slowing you down, it could be holding you down as well.
But servers are just the start - there are a number of server and site configurations that can have a big impact on site speed - stuff like a Content Delivery Network (CDN), Gzip compression, image size. Swing over to GTMetrix and add in a URL and you'll get a speed analysis, plus tips on how you can improve your speed score and overall site speed.
Hope this helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Domain SEO
Hi, May I know for the keyword "engagement rings" which domain is the best in term of SEO perspective? www.engagement-rings.com www.engagementrings.com 3)www.engagement_rings.com Thank you
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KINSHUN1 -
Does building backlinks help improve Google rankings? If so which links work nowadays?
Hi Guys, Please only reply of you have real experience.... So as the title implies does building backlinks work in improving the rankings in Google? I know they are not on the same level as some are spammy, in blog networks etc but how about other backlinks that are of higher quality? If yes, what sorts of backlinks work nowadays in boosting rankings but not risking getting penalized? So should you build backlinks ongoing? If so how many per month? I have a real struggle trying to get backlinks on really high quality sites. Any advice? Cheers John
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | whiteboardwiz1 -
Keyword rankings sudden drop
Hello, I own an online headshop, and as of last week my keyword rankings dropped significantly on some competitive keywords I was ranking for. I noticed the same thing happened to me last month, and then a few weeks later these keywords were ranking again. In fact, they were ranking even higher than before. I also noticed that 2 of my biggest competitors who receive 500k+ clicks a month had a significant drop in their keyword rankings as well. Does anybody know why this happens and how to correct the issue? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Kobeghods930 -
SEO Tactics - All in the Game?
Hey Mozzers Hoping to get some opinions on SEO at a small business level. We're engaged in SEO for a number of clients which are small businesses (small budgets). We stick to strictly white hat techniques - producing decent content (and promoting it) and link building (as much as is possible without dodgy techniques/paying huge sums). For some clients we seem to have hit a ceiling about with rankings anywhere between roughly position #5 - #15 in Google. In the majority of cases - the higher ranking clients don't appear to be engaged in any kind of content marketing - often have much worse designed websites - and not particularly spectacular link profiles (In other words they're not hugely competitive - apart from sometimes on the AdWords front - but that's another story) The only difference seems to be links on agency link farms - you know the kind? Agency buys expired domains with an existing PR - then just builds simple site with multiple blog posts that link back to their clients sites. (Also links that are simply paid for) Obviously these sites serve no purpose other than links - but I guess it's harder for Google to recognize that than with obvious SEO directories etc?... It seems to me that at this level of SEO for small businesses (limited budgets, limited time) the standard approach for SEO is the "expired domains agency link sites" described above - and simply paying bloggers for links. Are the above techniques considered black hat? Or are they more grey-hat? - Are they risky? - Or is this kind of thing all in the game for SEO at the small business level (by that I mean businesses that don't have the budget to employ a full time SEO and have to rely on engaging agencies for low level - low resource SEO campaigns) Look forward to your always wise council...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wearehappymedia0 -
More pages is good for SEO? Is this true?
Hi Guys I have a question, I was told the more pages I have the better for SEO, Is this true?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | edward-may0 -
Rank product pages
What are the best ways to rank your product pages, We have a few ecommerce sites and we want to increase the position of both our product and catagory pages. I know that gaining more popularity will help to increase the DA but I want my product pages to rank higher.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Johnny_AppleSeed0 -
Black Seo --> Attack
Hello there, Happy new year for everyone, and good luck this year. I have a real problem here, I saw in MOZ link history that somehow the "Total Linking Root Domains" is growing from a medium of 30 - 40 to 240 - 340 links and keep it growing. I guess somebody make me good joke, cause i did not buy any link :)) even cn, brasil, jp links, my store is from Romania. How I can block these links I think google will make me bad instead. What should i do? Thank you so much. With respect,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Shanaki
Andrei 0tYg1wB.png0 -
Rankings dropped, should I start a new website?
Hello, my rankings dropped last year (penguin update) - I think it was April 2012 and the website went from 300 visitors per day to 10 per day. This probably happened because I bought links, but I also did a lot of manual and natural SEO (at that time). After the drop, I didn't know what to do... so I did some manual SEO, blog comments, forum posts, article publications (lets say 60 links in total - with diverse anchor texts - brand keywords, etc) and then I paused working on the site to see if there will be any changes... and 1 year latter, there are still no changes. My site used to be in the top results of the first page and now it is totally out of Google. http://getmoreyoutubeviews.com Should I move on and start a new website or do something to fix this one? Thanks Alex
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | buysocialexposure0