December 15, 2008 by Simon King
Okay, so we all pretty much know that a regional domain name helps you in searches originating from that locale. For example, if you’re based in the UK with no international interests it’s probably a better idea to go for a ‘co.uk’ address to give you an advantage over the dot-coms in the British section of the market.
But does the location of the server obey the same principle? Does it make a difference whether your server’s based in Singapore or Shepherds bush?
As it turns out, it does. According to a Google blog, they often use the sever location to ascertain how closely the site matches a local search, “In the absence of a significant top-level domain, we often use the web server’s IP address as an added hint,” – Google.
The trouble with this is that more and more site owners in this country are using American servers since they’re often much cheaper. Google are smart enough to know that server hosting is a global marketplace and so location of servers is often no hint to the location of the company.
For this reason, I would imagine that the location of the server is a very minor factor. However, if there’s not much difference in price or performance it might be an idea to buy British.
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