How do you know when to upgrade hosting to VPS or Dedicated Server from an SEO perspective?
-
From an SEO perspective, how do you know when to upgrade web hosting to VPS or Dedicated Server?
Added:
We have a Dedicated IP Address and plenty of bandwidth and disk space. We've done a lot of work on page speed.
What we don't need is slow-downs due to the sharing space. Our business is seasonal with much higher traffic for three months of the year.
I'm leaning towards moving it up a notch. What is the next level after this?
And yes, our web host just confirmed that some of the things I want to implement can't be done because we are on a shared server. He recommended going to Dedicated Hosting.
And finally:
If we want to be absolutely positive that shared hosting problems won't affect us, and to customize, and also to increase speed, dedicated server seems to be the way to go?
-
Before adding new expenses purely for a speed boost, I would suggest looking at your site with PageSpeed. It is a free add-on in FireFox and is also available for Chrome. The results will let you know what opportunities you have to improve your page load optimization. Some changes offer a noticeable and immediate difference.
Don't try to get a perfect score. Generally speaking, anything 90+ is fine.
If you are purely looking at speed, VPS + Cloud would probably be the ideal solution. I would specifically use Amazon's cloud service to start, as they charge you on your exact usage with no minimum. If you ever get up to $100/month in usage, you can then began to examine other services to compare pricing.
If you use a cloud, I recommend not only offering your images and video files, but all your CSS and Javascript files. Your users will notice the speed difference.
I also want to be clear you may be able to keep your existing shared server and make other adjustments, or change hosts, and be absolutely fine. A shared server often costs less then $100/yr, where a dedicated server or VPS + Cloud will probably be $150+ per month. It's a big difference.
-
Thank you. I have something to compare now and more choices.
-
For all of the issues you mention, I am leaning towards the dedicated server. I think the level of business that we do on the web justifies the expense, even if it may be "overkill" on our actual needs. But with Google looking at speed (which is in their best interest...), it could only help.
Customization and not having to share problems other websites may be having on the server are also in the mix.
Thanks!
-
-
Would you share your really good host's name? Ours got back with a quote and I think it is high, but his expertise is probably worth the extra.
-
-
OMFG I did not know this tool existed!!!! i have been hosting on shared accounts for years, and always wondered, but never knew. now i do. WOW!
I wish i could give you 2 thumbs up.
-
You are right zharriet, time to give your host a call
-
I did look it up and though I have a "Dedicated IP Address", I saw another domain hosted on the server with that same IP Address. It's not a bad site in red, but I thought a dedicated IP address was for one website only.
I also checked it at http://www.domaintools.com and we show up as the only one.
And our host did check it out, too.
-
All great responses Here is a neat tool to see who is sharing space on your present server (it will also indicate potential 'bad' sites in red) http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/web-sites-on-web-server/
Andy
-
I concur with the following advice given.
Nothing short of the cloud beats having 100/mbs download speeds.
On a side note, VPS cloud nodes have become the new rage. While cheaper than a dedicated server, here has been but one experience:
I went from a 8.4ghz 5.14gb cloud setup (14 nodes at VPS.net) to a local (to Seattle) dedicated quad proc with only 6gb ram. The second server is well over 40% faster than the VPS cloud.
-
Ryan has given a great answer. I have left hosting services because of speed issues. They had way to many sites on the server.
Then I found a really good host and never had a speed issue running lots of sites on several of their servers. My movement through their various plan levels and on to dedicated hosting was mainly the need for bandwidth. Speed was not an issue when I moved to dedicated but that gave me the ability to select processors and add memory which got my site really fast.
-
For the most part, SEO does not care whether you are hosted in a shared environment, VPS or dedicated server.
There are a few issues that can arise from a shared environment.
Issue 1 - shared IP. Many shared hosting environments have 200+ sites on a server. Often there are porn sites and other sites which may get blocked by various filters. The problem this causes for you is the blocking is often IP based. If you get a VPS or dedicated server, you will usually have a unique IP. You can also obtain a unique IP in a shared hosting environment.
Issue 2 - speed. In a shared environment any one site owner can perform an action which causes issues for the server. The server can become very slow, and stay that way until you contact your host and they investigate the problem, then stop the task which is causing the issue. Some shared environments work out well. They hosting companies have alarms and processes to prevent or quickly identify issues. In my experience, most hosts do not take enough preventative measures and sites suffer.
Issue 3 - customization. When you first create a site, your needs are often small and generic. Over time your site grows and you desire to add additional software. The latest and greatest software packages for a CMS, for example, may require more updated versions of the supporting software. You may also require a server setting to be changed. Shared hosts are almost never willing to make these changes as they affect all users on the server. In a VPS or dedicated hosting environment, you can make these changes any time you want.
In summary, if you don't have any significant issues, you can stay with your shared environment.
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
-
Technical SEO - Where to begin?
Hi all, I'm looking to learn more about technical SEO. My background was digital marketing/PR where I learned the importance of links, of anchor text, of page speed, of improving UX signals, of SSL, utilising things like Google My Business etc. However, I find I am chasing my tail when it comes to things like understanding JS/CSS/log file analysis etc. I've tried reading so many articles on the subjects and I just find it so damn confusing. AnugalarJS/BackboneJS. Fetching & rendering, URL parameters...etc. I know from my own experiments that JS pages struggle to rank and I've created two very similar pages, one without JS, one with JS (which had far more links) and the non-JS page ranked far higher. So, I suppose I'm asking for some help with how to begin learning this stuff. I find the articles on Moz, Search Engine Land etc to be a bit confusing...maybe I'm not technically minded enough! Cheers, Rhys
Technical SEO | | SwanseaMedicine0 -
Trailing Slashes and SEO
Hi, We're currently using a third party blog platform (Blog Engine) on our site and we have a trailing slash issue. I can add as many trailing slashes as I want to the blog's homepage URL, but they don't redirect and our dev guys say this cannot be done with Blog Engine. We're in the process of building our own blog but, in the meantime, I just wanted to know if this will cause an issue? Individual blog posts with trailing slashes are redirected, it's just the homepage where it can't be done. I haven't noticed any traffic going to a blog URL with trailing slashes, and I don't believe any URLs with trailing slashes are being indexed, so should this be OK? Cheers, Lewis
Technical SEO | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
E-ccomerce SEO conundrum
I work on the marketing for an eccomerce website. And lately we have been having an issue with the "wrong" page ranking and the right page "being nearly unfindable." For example the product bit o honey - there is a brand page, category page and individual product pages. We want the category page to be the top level bit o honey "hub" page and have placed all of the products onto it. We've written a nice description about Bit O Honey on that page and spent time running social campaigns around that page to try and get social activity on page as well. There have even been a few back links from blogs or reviews onto that category page. It also has the highest page authority among all of the bit o honey pages. But for some odd reason it is always the absolute last result among the 3 options when i search? In fact the only time I can even find it is if I type in about 3 sentences worth of text from that page and it find exact match. I'm really pretty confused as to why the highest page authority page with the most content, activity and link profile, would have the worst ranking capability among the three nearly identical pages.
Technical SEO | | Jonathan_Murrell0 -
Questionable SEO
Chess Telecom appears first when you search for 'business phone lines' in the UK so I used a campaign to check them out. It seems they've got tons of unrelated links and using comment spamming to increase their ranking. Along with fake twitter accounts and other things. Search for 'jewel jubic chess' and you'll see what i mean. I assumed this wasnt a good idea and been trying to get my link on relevant websites only. Any comments or suggestions? Should I simply trust that google will hopefully punish them eventually? Or should I be fighting fire with fire? Thanks Dan
Technical SEO | | DanFromUK0 -
Redirection Impact on SEO
Need help urgently. There is the situation [This is how is it working now]: 1. Have a global landing page [say when user types in www.mysite.com - takes user to the global landing page: [www.mysite.com/global/en.html]](http://www.mysite.com/global/en.html] ) 2. Users from this landing page can select a country on his/her choice and get redirected say: [www.mysite.com/us/en.html] Would like to change the functionality as below: 1. When user types in www.mysite.com 1a. Would find the location of the request based on GEO IP and if the request is coming from North America region then would redirect the users to: www.mysite.com/us/en.html 1b. If the request is from any other location/region then it would continue to work as it is currently working: take the user to the global landing page: www.mysite.com/global/en.html Would this change have any negative impact or not found by search engines from SEO perspective? If it does then what are the impacts and if does not then why not. If it does then what is the best possible way to address this request. Appriciate your help. Thanks, Koushik Roy
Technical SEO | | KoushikRoy0 -
Wordpress Problems.. SEO-Yoast is Toast?
Hello; I have installed the WP Yoast Widget in my Blog, and 2 weeks, after my issues went away, they came back X's 300! lol So I uninstalled it, and my issues obviously got worse, and then I re-activated, and reset everything, and still got the 300+ issues. Is there a secondary plug in you would suggest, to run at the same time as Yoats, or theat will fix all issues? Ever think of making an SEOmoz Widget for WP since it is gaining so much popularity?? Thank you Great work by the way! Loved the Webinar today!
Technical SEO | | smstv0 -
Switching Hosting & SEO
Hello friends, We are facing the prospect of switching to a new hosting account or company. We are currently using a third-party reseller account but are outgrowing that account. We are considering VPS and dedicated servers. However, this will mean updates for IPs and nameservers. Does anyone have experience with SEO consequences of making switch? Best practices? Tips? Obstacles? Any and all comments/advice welcome. We're trying to balance the potential SEO ramifications of making the switch with the consequences of reduced site speed.
Technical SEO | | Gyi0 -
SEO LINKS
New to S.E.O. so excuse my naivety. I have made lots of new links some of them paid for e.g. Best of the Web but I don’t see any change in the latest competitive link analysis. Some of the links we have been accepted for just do not show. Also the keywords we are trying to promote the most have disappeared off the radar for over 2 weeks now. I think we have followed the optimization suggestions correctly. Please could you enlighten me. Regards Paul www.curtainpolesemporium.co.uk
Technical SEO | | CPE0