Where to host your web site?

[mascamps.com]

Even without making the site improvements you'd get quite a jump in hits by moving to a UK host. How much I don't know. Mine went up roughly x10 on two quite different types of site but friends from the Dordogne only got a 50% jump (still worthwhile, of course).

We're with eukhost.com at the moment. Something like £20/year.

Changing the nameservers is usually easy. Once you've signed up with a UK hosting company and uploaded your site, what you do is go to the control panel on your current hosting service and look for "name servers" or "DNS". That will list two addresses something like americanhosting1.com, americanhosting2.com. You change those to point to the new hosting service (which'll tell you what the two values are) ie replace americanhosting1.com & americanhosting2.com with ukhost1.com and ukhost2.com (or whatever values they've told you to use). It can take two or three days for this change to start working.

If you don't make any changes to the site, you won't even notice the change (aside from the extra hits), so what I do is to add a tiny bit of text to the bottom of the homepage before uploading the site on the new host (which is why you'll see the word "sevateem" at the bottom of some of our pages).

 

Arnold

[Breton Networks]

[quote user="mascamps.com"]

The absolutely vital point that nobody else has picked up is that your site is hosted in America. This of itself is reducing the hits (and thereby direct bookings) by around 90%.

[/quote]

That is absolute rubbish.

Care to answer my reply to that on another forum.

Regards

Nick Thompson

[mascamps.com]

Missed your replies Nick but I'll also reply here for the benefit of those reading this one.

Who knows why my particular increase in traffic was so drastic, but I can assure everyone that it was very real and kicked in very fast. I appreciate the comment about "hits" not being a totally reliable way of counting site traffic but used "hits" as a shorthand. The amount of traffic on the sites which I moved increased by every measure that I had available at the time ie hits, visitors, and even adsense all went up 10 fold over the course of about two weeks. As it happens, I never used the stats provided by the American host and so the counts of hits/visitors were consistently counted (via statcounter) before and after the move.

For clarity: there were no changes made in the websites at all. I simply uploaded the website on the new host and changed the nameservers. The traffic started going up a couple of days later and was around 10x the original traffic by two weeks after the move from America.

The recent move from 1and1 UK in Germany to a London based host has produced a 50-100% increase in site traffic, again consistently measured.

The sites affected are principally my listings sites and our own property site which all have a largely European audience rather than an American audience.

I'm aware that Marcus had an increase of 50-100% in hits when he made the US to UK move. Presumably the difference is down to the different way we each write & promote our sites but even that increase is, of course, useful. The only difference between us is that I kept the American registrar and he moved to a UK registrar so perhaps that's an aspect worth investigating at some point.

I suspect that moving to a .co.uk domain would also affect matters but I've not done much experimentation with that as yet.

 

Arnold

[Benjamin]

[quote user="Breton Networks"]

That is absolute rubbish.

Care to answer my reply to that on another forum.

Regards

Nick Thompson

[/quote]

Welcome to the forum Nick.

I'm shortly to be attempting to build a web site (the first one as I'm an amateur) for my son's fledgling business.

Hosting will be something that I will have to sort out so I'm intrigued by your comment.

Care to expand?

[Breton Networks]

[quote user="Benjamin"]Welcome to the forum Nick.[/quote]

Thanks

[quote]I'm shortly to be attempting to build a web site (the first one as I'm an amateur) for my son's fledgling business.[/quote]

Good luck

[quote]Hosting will be something that I will have to sort out so I'm intrigued by your comment.

Care to expand?[/quote]

Benjamin,

I'll try & hope I'm not doing a 'granny & eggs' thing.

Web sites are linked to a domain (mydomain.com etc) & domains (or more usually virtual domains) are hosted on a server, this server can be on anything from your home computer to a dedicated server on a high speed (backbone) connection.

Visitors to a web site have to come from somewhere, this can be via a search engine (google, yahoo etc), links from sites like this, print advertising etc. it depends upon on what you see as your market & where you are doing your marketing as to where you put the emphasis.

In spite of what mascamps claims, as far as 'users' are concerned (outside China) it makes no difference where the domain is hosted. In fact the search engine will not neccessarily know where the host is located, in the case of 1and1 they will have been given a block of IP addresses which they can use on any server anywhere in the world & no-one outside of 1and1 will necessarily know where thay have been allocated.

It would need a very detailed & expert analysis of his logs to know where mascamps extra visitors came from but it certainly wasn't because the domain physically moved from the US to the UK.

If you would like to have a look at the stats of a low traffic site goto to http://www.smhc.org.uk/stats/ click on one of the months & the important information is under Referrers.

I hope this helps & let me know if you would like any of this expanded upon.

Regards

Nick Thompson

[mascamps.com]

Nick, I know that it shouldn't matter where your site is hosted, but it quite simply does as you'd know if you read the webmaster forums.

I say again: the ONLY change I made to the sites was where they were hosted. Within two weeks of changing that, the traffic was up 10 fold. I simply uploaded the site on the European host and the traffic started going up within a couple of days: the only thing that changed was that the nameserver was pointing to a European host rather than an American one.

I did look at the referrer stats and the like before and after the move and it appears that UK sourced hits on the site were what went up but it was very much an across the board 10 fold jump.

Now, I do accept that perhaps a x10 jump is unusual, but others have also made the US to UK move of hosts and also experienced a jump in hits, albeit those that I've heard about have been in the 50-100% range in terms of increased traffic. Why mine was so large, I just don't know but it was of the same order for all sites that I moved (around a dozen in total).

As I say, anyone who doesn't believe that it makes a difference can quite easily try it out. If you're hosted in the UK, get an American host (maybe $20/year) and move your site; if you're hosted in the US, get a UK host (£20/year) and try it. I would be very surprised if there wasn't a noticeable difference in site traffic within a few days after the move.

 

[mascamps.com]

Quite simply from everywhere. Those arriving by yahoo and google went up more or less equally if memory serves. The google was the easiest to see in the adsense went up x10 within the two weeks (although, annoyingly, so did image search). The search terms used to get to the site became more varied overall but then you'd expect that with such a rise in site traffic.

Given that the search engine traffic went up 10 fold I imagine that our ranking improved as a consequence of the move. It didn't appear to be due to us moving from, say, position 3 to position 2 for a specific search term but rather an overall lifting in the ranking for all search terms.

I agree with you that it shouldn't happen but it is a fact of life that it happened with my collection of sites and some others that I know of who changed from US hosting to European hosting. This implies that some search engines do look under the hood so to speak and use the hosting location as one element of the ranking algorithm. I suspect that the lesser search engines don't have the computer power to do this but it would appear that google and yahoo (not sure about the msn results) do and they are by far the most significant search engines around.

My guess is that the domain also matters to a significant extent too in that my .co.uk listing site does much better than it should as compared to it's .com and .org equivalents. However, it's much harder to compare like with like in a move from .com to .co.uk (for me anyway) in that I have promoted the .com and .org sites but not, so far, the .co.uk equivalent (this will probably change over the winter, so ask me about that this time next year).

Certainly if anyone is currently hosting in America, it would be worth trying out a move to a UK based host. Worst case, you're down £20 and waste a few hours of your time making the move. Best case is your site traffic is dramatically up.

 

Arnold

 

[Breton Networks]

[quote user="mascamps.com"]

Quite simply from everywhere. [/quote]

Try using something like Google Analytics!, that will give you a much clearer idea where visitors are coming from.

[quote]I agree with you that it shouldn't happen but it is a fact of life that it happened with my collection of sites and some others that I know of who changed from US hosting to European hosting. This implies that some search engines do look under the hood so to speak and use the hosting location as one element of the ranking algorithm. I suspect that the lesser search engines don't have the computer power to do this but it would appear that google and yahoo (not sure about the msn results) do and they are by far the most significant search engines around.[/quote]

This is getting circular, but to quote an expert who has read your comments:

There are two essential facts to consider from the outset:

1. He is wrong

2. He will not accept that he is wrong.

My advice is to leave it at that. Let him wallow in his wrongness.

[quote]My guess is that the domain also matters to a significant extent too in that my .co.uk listing site does much better than it should as compared to it's .com and .org equivalents.[/quote]

It is rumoured that a .co.uk will appear higher on google.co.uk than a .com & the reverse may be true.

Regards

[mascamps.com]

I was running analytics (and other similar tools) on the sites concerned. The majority of traffic was from the UK before and after the move.

However, it appeared to be a pretty much across the board x10 increase in traffic ie we received more hits from the UK AND the US after the move (plus everywhere else for that matter). On the assumption that google et al actually do look at where your site is hosted this implies that one component of their ranking algorithm is that that the site is hosted in the location that its content is about ie an American holiday site should be hosted in America, a European one in Europe.

I even have some circumstantial evidence on that front: whilst ourinns has been set up to take listings from America for over a year we have received none yet when I expanded into the UK we started receiving them within a few weeks.

On the circular argument front, I do accept that if I were sitting on the other side of the fence I'd find it hard to believe that simply changing the hosting from the US to Europe would bump up traffic x10 (and it has grown steadily from that level). However, that was the only change made over the two week period during which the traffic jumped up so there don't appear to be any other variables. For instance, I wasn't running any site promotion over that time, there weren't any changes made to the text/design of the sites, etc.

I haven't yet separated out the stats for the .co.uk domain so it'll be interesting to see if that has a different geographic appeal. At present whilst the bulk of traffic is from the UK there is a sizeable chunk from France, Spain and America which is as I'd expect ie France will feature because of the entries there and the language (it's a bilingual site), America because of the language but less prominently due to the distance and because they don't get as much vacation time. Given what I've heard, the .co.uk domain should be more strongly concentrated on the UK.

 

Arnold

 

[tarncat]

All my sites are hosted in the UK and I'd never given this any thought. But having followed the current thread I've been doing some research and I agree entirely that hosting is country specific in terms of search engine visibility.

I've found such quotes as "... to ensure your website is ranked well in your country's specific search results then where you host your website can be critical to its success" and "Many search engines including Google give credit to where a site is located when determining search engine rank." and finally "The best thing to do is choose a web hosting provider in the country where your site is most relevant or from which you get the most business."

I think switching to UK hosting could be a big help. 

[Breton Networks]

[quote user="mascamps.com"]

On the circular argument front, I do accept that if I were sitting on the other side of the fence [/quote]

Just to set the record straight, I'm not on the 'other side of the fence', we have our own server located in Tele House in London.

If your were correct I would expect that every UK based hosting company would use it as a selling point, as far as I can see, none do.

Regards

[Quillan]

I'm not to sure about all this. My websites used to be hosted in the UK until I had service issues with them concerning Frontpage extensions. I moved my websites to a US host BUT kept my domains registered with the old UK host company thus using their DNS server. All my domains are .com because I don't want to limit myself to just the UK market.

Using the google.com search engine my pages are lower placed by one page compared to searching via google.co.uk even though as I have said my domain name ends in .com. When I normally start google it goes to the French version and I have to force it to go to either .co.uk or .com versions. I assume that although I am using a UK PC I am located in France. It may therefore possibly follow that the UK google will default to .co.uk. Therefore if your domain is a .co.uk one and you are using google.co.uk then you get a better position. I can't say if this is correct because I'm here in France and have no way of confirming this.

It would make sense that google defaults to the country you are in when you start it up, it would be convenient I guess.

[Breton Networks]

[quote user="Quillan"]

 I assume that although I am using a UK PC I am located in France. It may therefore possibly follow that the UK google will default to .co.uk.

It would make sense that google defaults to the country you are in when you start it up, it would be convenient I guess.

[/quote]

It does, you can alter the language and/or the country in the preferences.

It's not difficult, on my sons web site it determines where the visitor is from & sets the pricing & currency based upon that.

Regards

 

[Quillan]

Thanks for that but it's not a real problem for me. What I was getting at was that people in the UK will have their google set to .co.uk so therefore (especially if you select "pages from the UK" - many think you get pages in English and no other language by selecting this option) your webpage will be nearer the front of the search and you will get more hits. Just a thought.

[mascamps.com]

By "the other side of the fence" I meant that were I were on the other side of the argument I'd be pretty sceptical too.

UK hosts wouldn't necessarily pick up on it as they might well not be aware of the effect. However, I have seen several make a point of highlighting that there is an SEO advantage for them to be located in London. If they consider that it's an advantage to be in London presumably it would be even more of an advantage in comparison to being in America/France/whatever. I suspect that most people in the UK use a UK host by default so perhaps they don't bother mentioning the advantage because it doesn't affect massive numbers of people. After all, Catherine and Quillan seem to be the only ones here using an American host.

Quillan: it may be that there is a difference in the significance of which American host you use. Marcus (from the LMH forum) found a 50-100% jump in his move whereas I got x10. I moved from godaddy to 1and1 UK. He wasn't with godaddy but I don't know who he was using.

Google does default to the country specific one where one is available. You can change which google you pick up as you know BUT even if you use google.co.uk that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get the same search results when you use that in France as someone would get if they were using it in the UK (or any other country). For one thing, you've probably noticed that you get French language adverts on adsense on websites which presumably wouldn't appear were you in the UK. I think I read somewhere that you can force it to work as though you were in the UK but it's not as simple as just selecting google.co.uk .

 

Arnold

 

[mascamps.com]

I always used google.com even in the UK. If you use google.co.uk you'll actually exclude a great many UK based websites because few people bother to change the language and location defaults when they're writing websites.

Even if you don't specify "UK only", the majority of websites returned are from the UK/Ireland area rather than the US/Canada region or even Australia for that matter. This implies that google always uses your real location (as per your IP address) to prioritise the results on the basis that there are loads more US/Canadian websites than there are British/Irish ones.

Yahoo appear to do a similar thing though it's much more obvious that yahoo.co.uk isn't the same as yahoo.com .

 

Arnold

 

[Breton Networks]

[quote user="mascamps.com"]

This implies that google always uses your real location (as per your IP address) to prioritise the results on the basis that there are loads more US/Canadian websites than there are British/Irish ones.

[/quote]

It doesn't, I have just done google.co.uk & google.com searches on "Chambres D'Hotes Languedoc" from a computer in France & another in the UK & the first 2 pages of results are EXACTLY the same on all searches.

Regards

[Breton Networks]

[quote user="mascamps.com"]

UK hosts wouldn't necessarily pick up on it as they might well not be aware of the effect. [/quote]

If you have noticed, I'm sure they would have.

[quote]However, I have seen several make a point of highlighting that there is an SEO advantage for them to be located in London. [/quote]

There can be a SEO advantage by being on a fast/reliable server, they could mean this

[quote]I suspect that most people in the UK use a UK host by default [/quote]

Not in my experience

[quote]so perhaps they don't bother mentioning the advantage because it doesn't affect massive numbers of people. [/quote]

You don't know much about marketing :-) they would mention it if it only effected one person

[quote]For one thing, you've probably noticed that you get French language adverts on adsense on websites which presumably wouldn't appear were you in the UK. [/quote]

As you can set Adwords for specific locations that's not surprising, I have an ad running that only shows in Brittany, so you wouldn't see it even though you are in France.

Regards

[Russethouse]

[quote user="Breton Networks"][quote user="mascamps.com"]

This implies that google always uses your real location (as per your IP address) to prioritise the results on the basis that there are loads more US/Canadian websites than there are British/Irish ones.

[/quote]

It doesn't, I have just done google.co.uk & google.com searches on "Chambres D'Hotes Languedoc" from a computer in France & another in the UK & the first 2 pages of results are EXACTLY the same on all searches.

Regards

[/quote]

I have been reading this with interest so I just tried Bed and Breakfast Languedoc on Google.co.uk and then on Google.com and got different orders of results, so maybe getting the same result  is only true of some search terms ?

[Breton Networks]

[quote user="Russethouse"]

I have been reading this with interest so I just tried Bed and Breakfast Languedoc on Google.co.uk and then on Google.com and got different orders of results, so maybe getting the same result  is only true of some search terms ?[/quote]

That is an interesting search, the first pages of the results I saw were identical apart the the 2nd item on .com which didn't appear anywhere on the first 3 pages of the .co.uk search, but when I put Bed and Breakfast in quotation marks "Bed and Breakfast" Languedoc the results are the same.

I point I was making was that it makes no difference whether the search is done in the UK or France.

Regards

 

[mascamps.com]

BN: no, they were quoting an advantage specific to being based in London, not down to their servers. In principle, I could see there being an advantage in being in London on the basis that the networking infrastructure is probably going to be more beefy than it would be in, say, Aberdeen. Don't forget that I'm just assuming that google prioritise on the basis of where the hosting is and it could be simply down to how fast the response is from their spiders ie you could get a UK targetted website doing quite nicely hosted in America compared to a UK based host if it were at the end of a really fast connection.

I know a lot about marketing. There's only so much you can write before people nod off. Besides, they may simply not have picked up on differences re hosting location, even though it is talked about now and again on webmaster forums.

It's true that adwords can be geotargetted but then presumably google itself does the same thing with results.

As far as I'm aware google.com/google.co.uk results are not always the same when used from France and from the UK. Searching on "Chambres d'Hotes Languedoc" doesn't prove that wrong since we're in the midst of the holiday season so all the really active site promoters are going to be going full pelt and therefore the first couple of pages could well be identical on a search like that at the moment. You may have noticed that similar searches carried out at different times of the year can produce very, very different lists of results.

RH: My thought is that google.com and google.co.uk results are different in that people don't always add the appropriate region tags to their websites (eg not using en-gb for a UK targetted page). However, I have also seen the order of some of my pages being different in both googles so it's probably not so simple as that.

 

Arnold

 

[Breton Networks]

[quote user="mascamps.com"]

It's true that adwords can be geotargetted but then presumably google itself does the same thing with results.[/quote]

Possibly but why would it

[quote]As far as I'm aware google.com/google.co.uk results are not always the same when used from France and from the UK.[/quote]

I've done 6 searches from computers in France & the UK using the same search terms & they all returned identical results.

[quote] Searching on "Chambres d'Hotes Languedoc" doesn't prove that wrong since we're in the midst of the holiday season so all the really active site promoters are going to be going full pelt and therefore the first couple of pages could well be identical on a search like that at the moment. [/quote]

I chose that search term at random because Quillans' web site mentioned it & it was regional, if you don't have access to a computer in the UK, let me have a search term & I'll check that. I don't understand the rest of your comment.

[quote]You may have noticed that similar searches carried out at different times of the year can produce very, very different lists of results.[/quote]

Searches on the same terms can produce different results even a few hours apart.

Regards

 

[Cat]

I have split the web hosting information out of the "what are we doing wrong" thread, but you can still find the original thread here http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/950199/ShowPost.aspx

[Pierre ZFP]

Yahoo bought their search engine (at great expense) from Google so they should be very similar.  I'm sure the configuration of both systems will be very different though.

I usually use google.lu  [geek]