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Website owners are ready to go the extra mile to increase the popularity of their websites, blogs, and other digital properties. However, at times their online marketing or Search Engine Optimization activities fail to produce desired results. Several factors influence the outcome of SEO activities, and among them, one of the most ignored is web hosting. Well, web hosting has a considerable impact on your website’s SEO rankings.
Websites depend on two things to operate – domain and hosting. Even though most of the web hosting service providers allow users to purchase a domain and hosting, but one can opt to buy both of these from two different providers. For instance, you can always choose to buy a domain from GoDaddy and hosting from Bluehost. However, you must never forget that buying your domain and hosting from different providers does not impact your website’s SEO in any manner.
From virtual private servers (VPS) to shared hosting and from dedicated servers to WordPress Managed servers, a plethora of options are available for web hosting with companies like BlueHost. Depending on your space, performance, and resource needs, you can opt for a specific server for hosting your website. The choice of your hosting server directly impacts your website’s performance, which in turn determines whether your SEO activities bear desired results or not.
Even though choosing the best web hosting service provider doesn’t guarantee stellar SEO results, but it helps you avoid significant consequences associated with choosing the wrong web hosting. Thus, it’s essential to choose carefully and not fall into the trap of choosing an inexpensive hosting service provider. Multiple web hosting factors can directly affect your SEO campaign and results.
Web Hosting Factors Affecting SEO
According to the experts at Bluehost, three web-hosting factors can directly affect your website’s SEO results – Speed, Uptime/Downtime, and Security. Out of these, two factors fluctuate at regular intervals, and you will need to review them periodically. On detecting any problem, you must contact your web hosting provider and seek support. You must not assume that the web hosting company is already aware of the problem, and instead, you should be proactive in dealing with the issue. Call up the support team of your web hosting provider and inform them about the problem. Server hosting companies like Bluehost offer 24 X 7 customer support to facilitate speedy resolution of issues and ensure smooth functioning of websites.
Since two of the factors, speed and downtime/uptime, show fluctuations, so it’s wise to go for a monthly instead of yearly plan. Thus, whenever you find your web hosting provider dropping its standards, you can quickly move the website to a new server. In case you’ve signed for a long-term contract, but your website is facing multiple hosting issues, then you must move to a new server because hosting issues can impact your SEO in a big way.
Let us find out more about the web hosting factors that can profoundly impact your website’s SEO rankings:
· Security has a significant impact on SEO
Google attaches a lot of importance to site security, and if your website is on a vulnerable server, then obviously Google is going penalize you for the same. No matter how much effort you put into your SEO campaigns, you will fail to impress Google. Often security is an issue with cheap (aka affordable) servers as they can’t provide high-level security, which dents search engine results for your website.
If WordPress powers your website or blog, then it’s best to opt for a secured WordPress managed server provided by companies like Bluehost. Since this hosting option is offered specifically for the WordPress framework, all plugins and anti-hack protocols adhere to security protocols laid down by WordPress. Additionally, reputed service providers like Bluehost offer add on security services such as SiteLock for all websites that are built using other website builders.
· Uptime/Downtime
The period for which a site is inaccessible to visitors is known as downtime. This usually happens when there’s a problem with the server. Search engine spiders visit your website at different times during a day, so if they fail to access your site at any particular time, then they will downgrade it for obvious reasons. Now, if downtimes become a regular feature with your website, then your SEO campaign will be severely hampered. There’s also a chance of your site being considered unreliable, which will ultimately lead to a loss in terms of search engine rankings. However, it’s also true that server downtime is inevitable, but you’ll need to ensure that it doesn’t extend beyond a couple of hours. Thus, it’s essential to choose a reputed hosting service provider like Bluehost that guarantees at least 99.9% uptime.
· Speed
Google has already accepted that page load speed is an important ranking factor, so it’s quite apparent that you need to maintain a good page load speed for your website. There’re approximately 200 factors that affect your website’s search engine ranking, so the rate has an impact percentage of 0.5%. You must pay attention to the speed at which individual pages of your website load.
The slow loading speed of your website isn’t always related to your hosting server, so you must check with your developer for the below-average loading speed. Coding, configuration, and other technical aspects must be analyzed, and if everything seems to be all right, then you must check in with your hosting provider. Sites slow down when server resources get consumed by numerous back-end processes and applications. If you’re using a shared server, then chances are quite high that your website isn’t able to access the necessary resources for optimal performance, thereby slowing them down. Depending on your budget, you can always choose to move your website to a dedicated server (check out the ones offered by Bluehost), wherein your server’s resources won’t be shared with any other site.
Conclusion
The choice of your hosting server can influence your website’s search engine rankings, so you must host your websites on servers offered by companies like Bluehost. You need to get in touch with the customer care executives and mention your requirements. Thoroughly study their recommendations and choose a plan that meets your web hosting needs.
