The relationship between website hosting and their position in search engines
When a user types a phrase into a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others, they expect to receive a list of relevant results. In an era where so many websites may be relevant to any phrase, there are complicated algorithms that allow the search engine to rank the results displayed, and it turns out that there is a close relationship between website hosting and their ranking.
The reason: Hosting a website in a certain location may affect how quickly it loads for the user, how quickly pages on the site respond, and how generally the user experience is affected. Beyond the relevance of the content on the site, if it is hosted in a way that causes the user some inconvenience, it is likely that the search engine will rank it low, sometimes even lower than sites that are not exactly on target.
Slow and nervous
The speed at which a website loads has two aspects that may affect its ranking in search engines:
On the one hand, there are search engine robots, which constantly crawl websites, thus ensuring that they remain relevant. If a website is stored in a location that makes it difficult to load or even crashes from time to time, the robot may skip crawling that site – and its ranking in the results list will suffer.
On the other hand, there are those who visit your site. If they have to wait too long for it to load or respond, and even more so if they receive an error message, they are likely to leave quickly. Search engines detect quick exits from your site and conclude that it is less relevant – another reason for ranking damage.
Another aspect of website loading or response times is user experience. Since search engines do not want to present their users with sites that will cause them an unpleasant user experience, they will prefer to present these sites in lower positions.
Which country?
Localization means adapting the site to the country and its target audience, and hosting sites on local servers is generally perceived by search engines as more relevant than sites located on servers abroad. For example, a site intended for an Israeli browsing audience will load faster if it is located in Israel, which leads to a better user experience and higher value in the eyes of search engines – and ultimately to a higher ranking in the results list. This is especially noticeable when these sites are accessed via a mobile device such as a tablet or smartphone, as in such a case the local cellular network also has an impact, and it will be easier for it to load a site located in the same country than in another.
Similarly, search engines tend to value localization expressed in domain names in the language of the country in which the search was conducted (which is why we see more and more domain names in Hebrew in Israel), domain names that have a local extension (co.il), websites whose content matches the language spoken in the country, and local IP addresses.
Multiple sites
If one person operates several different websites that are all on the same server, search engines may identify that the IP addresses of the sites are the same or similar, and in some cases where there are links between the different sites, the rankings of all of them may be affected. This means that it is better to separate the physical locations of different sites, or at the very least choose a hosting package that allows for the assignment of different IP addresses.
In conclusion – what is the connection between website hosting and their position in search engines?
Every website wants to appear as high as possible in the search results list, and investing in website hosting means investing in rankings. When choosing a website hosting package, it is recommended to make sure that the website will be located on a stable and powerful server, invest in adapting the package to the country in which it operates, and in the case of multiple websites, it is recommended to treat each of them as a separate website in its own right.
