websitewriters.co.za

Where your website is hosted and Google search results.

Posted by Rafiq Phillips on March 21, 2006 on 1:21 pm | In Search Engine Optimization |

Many South African websites host their sites in the US or anywhere else bandwidth is cheaper than hosting in South Africa.

A great way to save on hosting costs but not so great when search results are filtered by location.

Would you rather pay less for hosting internationally but be removed from a localized Google search result? If your site is meant to target user by a specific location or area I have found that the cost of hositng your site in that area and being included in that location’s Google search results far outweighs hosting your site on cheaper, international, servers.

Example: The search term ‘mxit’ on Google South Africa returns 19,500 results when searching of the web. When filtering the same MXit search for South African pages only (593 results),the top 10 results change slightly. If your site is hosted outside of South Africa it would be removed from the South African Google Search Engine Result pages, no matter how relevant to South Africa your site is.

Any user wishing to find a South African website about the product or service your site offers will not find you on a local google search if your site is not hosted locally or does not have a .co.za (South African) domain name.
Something to consider before deciding on where to host your site and the use of a domain name.
Thank you Jason Bagley for your contribution.