How Important is a Host to SEO
You may have read our article about Choosing the Right Host a few weeks back and we have some updates to this post. After reviewing the Google patent applications and reading up on the ways that they may or may not rank pages we noticed some interesting things that make the point of choosing your host wisely.
The game just got a little harder after what we found in their patent application that was filled about 2 years ago. Many of the myths that we always thought they may do were covered in this application. Now before we begin let me stress that this is just speculation and Google may not be using these, but they have the rights to use them at any point in time.
When most companies decide to host a website they usually focus on the features of the hosting provider’s servers and the price. When you shop by price you usually end up on a server with hundreds if not thousands of other websites on it. You are thereby sharing an IP address with hundreds of other people who can influence your rankings. This is a big problem!
Many SEO professionals are smart enough to know better than to host their sites on these types of servers and sign up for their own dedicated servers with a unique IP address. This is a step in the right direction, but it may not be good enough. What happens when you get a dedicated server from a big hosting company is they assign your dedicated server an IP address range and you are free to use them however you want. From reading the Google patent we learned that Google is not only ranking you based on who else is on your IP address, but who else is in your IP address Class. For those of you who do not know an entire Class C IP Address range is 255 different IP addresses. This means that anyone in your IP Class can influence your rankings.
Another issue is your DNS nameservers. Google can see all the websites that are pointed to your nameservers and can ban or block every website using common nameservers. This is BIG news.
When you chose a hosting provider these factors should affect your buying decision. I am not saying that everyone needs to rush out and change hosting companies, but I am telling you to choose wisely.
Good Luck,
Spencer Hoyt
Seo Certified Servers is a good place to start in finding the right host.