The web hosting service that you decide to work with has a huge impact on your site’s raking in popular search engines. Although choosing the right web hosting in Australia might not guarantee a boost in your rankings, it can help you avoid the consequences of choosing a wrong host. For inspiration, here are 3 web hosting factors that can impact the rankings of your website:
1. Uptime/Downtime
Downtime refers to the amount of time that your website remains inaccessible as a result of problems with the server (where it is hosted). Generally, search engine spiders will try to visit your site several times a day, and if they happen to visit during periods of downtime, they will record or assume that your site is inaccessible and move on to the next website. If this happens repeatedly, your site will be flagged as unreliable and will be downgraded. Ideally, your website should be 100 percent accessible, though some amount of downtime is inevitable even on high-end hosting plans. Nonetheless, it is not unreasonable to expect your hosting provider to offer and guarantee you 99.9 percent uptime, so don’t settle for anything less.
2. Speed
A slower than average loading speed may be caused by several factors, and it may not be your host’s fault. However, if you are sure about your site’s coding and configuration, it is important to ask your hosting company to move the site to another server. In cases of shared hosting (where your site shares server resources with hundreds of other sites), your website load speed may be impacted because the sites will be competing for the available resources. By hosting or moving your website to a dedicated, private, or a less busy server, you can significantly boost the speed of your website.
3. Location
Besides other factors, search engines also assess the location of your website to display the most relevant search results. Hosting your website with a company in Australia should, therefore, result into higher rankings for your website when people in Australia search for your chosen keywords. The only flip side to this is that your website will rank lower in search results where people search for the same keywords in different locations.
Bottom-line
These are some of the top of ways of how the hosting company that you choose to host your website could impact your SEO. So, as soon as you notice a few problems with your website speed, uptime, or shift in rankings, it is highly advisable to contact your website hosting company immediately to ascertain whether the problem is originating from their end.