What country to host a .com.au? Does it matter?

[Blue Wren]

Hello DNTrade members

Does it matter if a .com.au is hosted in another country other than Australia?

Pros & Cons would be great if you have a spare moment to list.

Many thanks

 

[findtim]

i use hostgator and i posted an extensive rant about how good i have found them (in another post.)

soory don't have time right NOW to find the post but PM me and i'll find it

basically i have found NO drop in SEO or rankings by using an american host

tim

 

[snoopy]

There has been a couple of threads on this before, would try a search. Personally believe it does make a difference, everything else being equal the offshore host is going to be slower, would be doing some speed tests on local hosts.

 

[Blue Wren]

Thank you both Tim and Snoopy.

 

[findtim]

One of the seminars i went to mentioned of load speed issues but i have never had them, i don't know what kinda site you are running so its hard to advise.

Gzip functionality is something to consider

tim

 

[FirstPageResults]

Faster response times in Australia but generally higher prices.. if it's for a large site or ecommerce/money site then I would be hosting it here. Think about users first and the SEO will be fine.

 

[DavidL]

I would agree with everything people have said here.

The .au tells Google it's Australian so that ranking box is effectively ticked (and I do think this is a Yes/No ranking variable).

So the other consideration is speed which Google does bang on about being important for ranking. However I don't know whether it's as simple as saying a speed score of 1-100 will give you a ranking score of 1-100 for that particular metric.

I think it's probably simpler and more likely that Fast/Average sites will have a slight boost over Slow sites - another Yes/No ranking variable. So, upshot is, if you're sites are not image heavy and page load times are OK, it's probably just as well to save the hosting $$$ and stick with an overseas host. I alos recommend Hostgator.

PS The other thing speed influences is on-site conversions so if it's a lead gen site with a heap of traffic for instance, might be worth paying the extra to see if that makes a difference.

 

[helloworld]

I've always wondered where Google base there load times from though.

In answer to your question OP, you can just use Google webmaster tools to tell search engines where you are located.

PS screw Hostgator. I will match any pricing you are currently with them and have Australian and US servers. Hit me up.

 

[findtim]

PS screw Hostgator. I will match any pricing you are currently with them and have Australian and US servers. Hit me up.

i use the "aluminium" but will probably need to go up to cooper soon

http://www.hostgator.com/resellers.shtml

One of the big issues for me would be MOVING all my domains. can you solve that? I have 44gig in one of the accounts.

if you could give me "aluminium" in australia then i would take it "for my next business"

Ohh, by the way my yearly subscription ends 28/6/12

tim

 

[Lucas]

I personally don't think it matters as far as Google is concerned. Load time may be an issue though.

I use dedicated servers in Germany and the US and the price for comparable servers in Australia ranges from about 5 - 10 times what I currently pay. So for my budget can get very nice servers that are lightning fast overseas or mediocre / low spec servers here which in my opinion more or less balances out load time issues.

Why is Australia so behind the times in terms of hosting prices??

 

[snoopy]

I've always wondered where Google base there load times from though.

I think it is done locally.

 

[FirstPageResults]

Why is Australia so behind the times in terms of hosting prices??

Less users and more cable required = higher prices

Also I think electricity costs twice as much here?

 

[Ashman]

I used a VPS server in Japan for an .au e-commerce site. I found that the page load time was very slow. The server was also using Plesk and I found that to be very non-intuitive compared to cPanel.

I have since moved to a dedicated server in Australia and have noticed the difference in page response and ranking. I would only recommend using off-shore servers for mini-sites otherwise pay a little extra and go for dedicated Australian servers especially if it's an Australian client.