Does Web Hosting Affect SEO Of Your Website?

Does Web Hosting Affect SEO Of Your Website?

Ranking on Google SERP is not that much easy in 2023. There are almost 200+ factors involved in ranking a page in search results. Google loves fast-loading content for its users. Does web hosting affect SEO is the most asked question by newbies.

Although your website hosting is not directly involved in page ranking, Several SEO factors are directly linked to your hosting provider. Thus, it must be a matter of concern for you to choose a web hosting that fulfils your requirements.

Why Is Hosting Important For SEO?

Website SEO largely depends on the hosting provider. They are responsible for the security, availability, and storage of website files. The additional you invest in your hosting server, the more satisfactory the user experience you achieve.

Free or shared hosting has limited resources and server specifications. That can’t deal with massive traffic. For example, you are using shared hosting with a 512 MB server. You don’t know how many sites are attached to the same server.

Maybe the other site owner depletes most of your server capacity and your website will be inaccessible due to resources limitation. A website that does not load faster 24/7 is nothing but a liability. Everything you invest in SEO will gain nothing except the waste of time and money.

Here are some factors that are linked to your hosting provider. Let’s go through them.

Website Loading Speed / Core Web Vitals

Google has recently introduced Core Web Vitals that demonstrate the website loading speed on different devices. Most traffic comes from mobile devices. Your website must load faster on all devices like desktops, tablets, and mobile phones.

Core Web Vitals are dependent on the hosting company. The more powerful servers you use, the quicker your website loads. Hostinger gives a built-in lightspeed cache plugin that helps improve Core Web Vitals.

Popular Tools To Check Core Web Vitals

• Page Speed Insights by Google
• Pingdom Page Loading Checker
• GTMetrix Page Loading Insights

Server Uptime

Uptime is basically a server response on each visit to your website. Users cant access your web pages during the downtime. It badly affects SEO and user experience.

Google crawler keeps visiting fresh and old pages with time to check the indexing status. If your website is down and the crawler visits, it won’t index the pages that are not accessible.

Pages are basically files stored on remote or physical servers. Hosting companies offer virtual servers to store and show the pages to visitors.

A good hosting provider ensures 99.9% server uptime for the availability of web pages globally. That is why web hosting downtime can affect your ranking.

Server Location

Server location is another important aspect of web hosting’s involvement in SEO. For example, if the most audience comes from European countries then your server should also be in a similar location. It will add a better experience for the majority of visitors.

If you are using the local domain for your business, then chose the nearest server to your domain extension. Like .au, .nz, .us, etc. Also, enable Geo-targeting from your Google Search Console. Search engines will show your site pages in that area preferably.

Hosting Affects Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is an analytical perspective of a user staying on a website. It is measured in percentages like 40%, 60%, etc. There are several things that affect the bounce rate including web hosting, site structure, and content quality.

If your site is facing downtime and a user visits, it would be a negative factor and increase the bounce rate of your website. You need to make sure that your website is always up and running.

Search engines rank those websites and pages that have lower bounce rates. A visitor must go through more than one page. That is only possible if your website is live and loading faster than others. An increase in bounce rate decreases your website position in the Google SERP.

SSL And Website Security

As per Google guidelines, SSL Certificate also known as HTTPS is a ranking signal. Your website URLs are served under the data security lock. That means user information and activity are relatively secure on websites that use HTTPS.

Good hosting plans include valid SSL and malware scanning. It enhances visitors’ confidence and SEO of your website to keep your platform safe.

Web Hostings And Their Affects On SEO

It could be confusing for beginners to differentiate between the different types of hosting plans offered by hosting companies. The better plan you chose for your website, the better results will come.

Here are a few common web hosting plans used by businesses and individuals.

Free Web Hosting

Platforms like Wix, Blogger, and WordPress.com give free web hosting for a personal blog, portfolio, and landing page. You don’t need a domain to create your website.

They allow unlimited free subdomains on their platforms. But it is not ideal for brands and businesses in terms of credibility. Free web hosting has limited resources and restrictions.

SEO opportunities are also lesser on websites hosted on free web hosting. You need to purchase at least a shared web hosting plan for speed, storage, and availability.

Shared Web Hosting

Shared web hosting is a cost-effective solution for beginners. It is best for a basic website that doesn’t have extraordinary monthly visits. A server is shared with multiple people which is not a good point related to website security and SEO.

You won’t be allowed to do a lot of things in these plans. Best for personal blogs, personal websites, and fewer-traffic websites.

Dedicated Hosting

Higher-traffic sites require dedicated servers with additional resources. This hosting plan can be more expensive than shared hosting. It definitely affects the SEO of websites and content serving different regions of the world.

Dedicated hosting gives the best uptime and website loading speed as compared to shared hosting plans. You need to invest a little bit if aiming a better competition in search ranking. This plan is best for enterprise websites that are eyeing a bigger audience.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is considered reliable, secure, and fast loading. It can be expensive but recommended for medium-sized businesses and content websites. Hostinger is giving the best and most cost-effective cloud hosting plans with unlimited resources.

Web hosting is no doubt the best investment in your website’s SEO. If you are investing high in your SEO and have crap hosting, it would be definitely a waste of time and money.

VPS Hosting

VPS stands for a virtual private server. It is a physical and shared hosting server with dedicated resources for each website owner. It comes in the most costly hosting plans.

If you are running a major website with massive daily traffic then VPS hosting is best for better uptime and user experience. It is like purchasing a dedicated portion of a big virtual server for your website.

Managed Hosting

Hosting companies have a team of technical workers in their support. Managed hosting is for those who don’t want to handle the technical headache of a website. Your hosting provider will take care of it like website configuration, maintenance, and technical and software updates.

The hosting provider does everything on your behalf. It costs higher than shared hosting but adds value to your website’s SEO and availability. Recommended for E-commerce stores and CMS like WordPress etc.

Final Thoughts

Web hosting is an integral part of website technical SEO. Choosing a bad host can cost you in terms of traffic, search ranking, and most importantly user experience.

Frequently Asked Questions