Search engine friendly web hosting helps your website generate more traffic by making sure you stay up on the rankings in a search engine’s search results. But is this really true?
When a new web-master decides to take the plunge and buy web hosting it is never an easy step to take but many never give search engine friendly hosting a second thought.
Let me discuss website hosting and how it is vitally important to the success of your website when it comes to dominating the search results.
The Need for Speed
It is vitally important for your blogs and websites to be fast and easily accessible.
This includes crashes, errors or just the fact that it was too slow to load content because of the slow server.
You need to house your website on a well-oiled machine that is both maintained and updated regularly. We all know that people are very impatient now a days and a fast website will please the users far more than something that takes too long to load.
Of course there all so many factors that contribute to the speed of a website, however you really need to start with great Web hosting in the first place. After that you can work on keeping your own site running smoothly knowing that your hosting will not be causing speed problems for your website.
So what has a slow website got to do with search rankings?
Well when a user visits your website from a listing in the search engines, if they are confronted by a slow website, they will possibly bounce right off your website. This is not good for search engine rankings as it shows that a user either went to your website by accident or was not impressed with what they saw. You can use sites like Google Analytics or Pingdom to check your site speed.
Awesome Uptime
Have you ever had your site go down? Well it is a nightmare for any Webmaster! Every minute damages your reputation and your SEO (search engine optimization) rankings. Imagine all the people trying to access your website and not been able to.
When the spiders come to crawl your website and it is not available, this is not good for search engine rankings. Especially if they come back a few days later and your website is still not available. This is why we need to make sure we have the best web hosting that has the most reliable up time percentage possible.
Quick Service
I use HostGator for my website hosting and one big reason is their 24/7 instant chat support. When I have a problem I quickly logon to chat to a real person to help me out.
Having well over 20 websites, trust me, I have used this service many, many times. Out of all these times that I've had a problem, Hostgator has quickly fixed my errors 99% of the time and some errors had nothing at all to do with their servers. That is why I use them, because you cannot possibly pay for good web hosting service like that.
Updated Software
Updating your website regularly so that it is easier and faster to access every time is important too and staying in touch with any latest methods which can help you generate more traffic. This is also true for your Web hosting as they need to update their software on the server to keep up with technology. Servers that run older versions of software run the risk of malware invasion and also errors on their customer’s websites.
Automated Backup
You are probably wondering what automated backup has to do with ranking in the top search engines, but just imagine when your site crashes and you have nothing to replace it with? That is when automated backup comes in handy. The longer it takes you to replace your website, the more your rankings will drop, so having a backup handy will save a lot of work.
Whether or not a search engine friendly host exists, you can now see how choosing the right website hosting can affect your rankings in search engines. This is exactly why I would only recommend buying hosting from the top web hosting companies as they have a bigger reputation to lose. A word of caution, whatever you do, don't ever go for free web hosting. You'll wish you hadn't!
What about you – are you satisfied with your current web hosting?
Hi Mitz,
Buying a web-hosting package for WordPress to start a blog is costly but it’s worth 🙂 You will get Speed + BackUp + Security and Great Customer Care.
Well I started my websites on a 4.95 plan and then upgraded to $9.95. Then later I got a dedicated server. That’s is about $200 a month.
It is all very cheap for what you can do with it. 🙂
Having a good host is very important, especially if you have a WordPress site because WP owners tend to add a bunch of plugins that makes the sites load slowly. WP out of the box is excellent but 30-40 plugins – some of them poorly configured – will drag your site down. The same goes for some free themes. In addition to have a good host with good customer service, make sure you only use the plugins you need. Using a CDN network like Cloudflare and a good cache plugin could also speed up things for you.
Yes you are right about the plugins..I think when you are new you have too many plugins, but later you add code in to replace those plugins..
A CDN is a good idea too. 🙂
This is a very helpful article for a newbie to blogging like myself. I didn’t realize that WP offered web hosting. Here’s my question, with WP can you have solicit to have advertising on your site? I realize in your article that you mention paying $30 to remove advertising from WP, but can I sign my site up for Adsense for instance and generate money from advertising if I host with WP?
Thanks for your time!
This article is about hosting a WordPress website on good SEO hosting but I know WordPress itself has hosting also. The best place to ask questions about their hosting and advertisement policy is to visit their site.
Hey Mitz,
I’m with Hostgator and I think these factors tie up together to make them a great search engine web host. What do you think about them?
Hi Enstine
Yes I do like Hostgator and I have some awesome sites hosted on there. The proof of their SEO capabilities is in the pudding. 🙂
Nice post Mitz,
Choosing a web host is always an important decision when starting a website and sometimes i find it will worth spending a little extra for a better web host and back-ups are essential.
The hosting company I use have LightSpeed servers whichi find work well for my SEO. Thanks for the nice tips 🙂
Nice work Mitz – I have stuck with Hostgator because of the 24/7 support however I’ve still had my fair share of issues with them. There are specialist WordPress hosting service providers which include CDN and you’re only looking at say $20-25 per month. Not an extremely high price to pay for a quality, however most don’t offer 24/7 support.
Yes the support gets me every time. They have even fixed my website when it really had nothing to do with them.. 🙂
Great post Mitz.
I have personally seen the vital importance that speed plays in determining SEO value. I recently added 3 small sites on my VPS box and within 2 days saw my SERP rankings drop dramatically.
Thanks for reminding me to bump up my RAM. I have also never experienced or heard of any bad experiences with HostGator.
Thanks for the tips.
Yes same here! I have never heard of a problem with hostgator itself. 🙂
I am also with host gator. I didn’t know that I have automatic backup. That is a great benefit with all this talk about spammers. Thanks for the tips.
The auto backup comes with certain plans. 🙂
Nice post Mitz , its really helpful. Now i will go with Hostgator hope it will serve my needs
Great write-up on web hosting, Mitz! I’m with HostGator as well. It’s good to know that my site is in good hands. And yes, I love the 24/7 availability of HostGator support. 🙂
Excellent Post. Each web page has it’s own URL, and that URL shouldn’t be wasted, as it’s a stepping stone towards good site usability and structure, for Search Engines and for users, in a very competitive market.
meethost claim that they are super SEO friendly and will provide with all the necessary info. Well, it first came to my mind, I use some other providers but considering this one as a next.
Hey Mitz, how are you?
Nice work, yes really need good server for our blog/website because page loading matters for your site in search engine and also for users who are visiting your site.. thanks for sharing this information..
I have heard of websites crashing, but I have never heard of blogs crashing. But I will do my research on that and if I find it true that blog crash, I will back up my blog.
Blogs and websites are the same thing now days.. Anything can crash on a server, just like a computer crashes from overload on the resources. 🙂
Hey Mitz,
At first, I really thought the contents of the site are the main reason for slowing its speed loading time. Contents such as slides, videos, inappropriate ads and etc. It never crossed my mind that it also varies with web hosting. It is true that having a problem in loading the pages of your site will deeply influence the sites rankings in search engines that is why, it should be the first thing to secure. But now that I have learn about web hosting being a factor for speed, I will surely check my web hosting provider and see if they can actually host my site well. Thanks for sharing this very informative post.
Yes lets just say someone might set-up their own hosting company with old servers that they bought from an auction. They could be running outdated software and more.
It is like having an old Windows xp computer compared to a new Windows 8 one. It is faster and serves files quick.
great article mitz
yes choosing a web host is a crucial task and we should choose a web host after doing a research, i like hostgator and i like bluehost too they both are awesome, thanks for this post
hey mitz
nice post, a web host can make or break a business. if you hosting is good you will definitely be happy but a bad web host gives so much downtime and thus your ranking will be affected by this. so we should try to purchase a good web hosting.
Yes you are right that hosting can make or break a business. I have had downtime on my sites when hosting with bad companies and that is why I am with hostgator and have been for years now.
I am sure there are many great hosting companies out there but until they do something wrong to me then I am sticking with them. 🙂
When I started blogging, I did signup with some really cheap local hosting service provider. Later on I started facing issue.
I moved to hostgator and I think this is one of the best step I took in my blogging journey.
Hostgator is what is was looking for, They’re very good at support. They do solve my issue within few minutes.
I never faced any downtime with them. Overall, I’m satisfied with them.
Regards,
Ammar
Yes I had a few hosting services before going to Hostgator and now I have been there for about 6 years or more…(lost count)
I think speed is important for Seo. But that should not be your main concern when u choose hosting. For me reliable support is essential.
Top article from a top writer.. Many webhosting companies claims that they are the best, but cannot support 5k visitors per day. “Which is the best web hosting company?” This question will always remain unanswered..
Yes there are many good hosting companies but they do not want to support the bigger sites when they can just have loads of small ones.. Why would they?
Hey Mitz,
I think good hosting is best option to make better SEO. I am also using hostgator for WordPress blogs and its working well. It is good because it secure and fast. Hostgator helped me lot make my blogs better.
I’ve had serious down times in the past and hence have also had serious drop in the rankings. Its quite true that when a site is down, you not only lose traffic and revenue but also search engine rankings – coz just like people, the bots are also frequently visiting your site and if they find that your site is down for a long time or quite frequently, this is going to hurt the rankings.
Hi Jane
Yes I know it is bad. I will not tolerate it now. My site is never down as it on a dedicated server monster that is awesome! 🙂
I stayed on the normal servers for as long as I could but then started getting problems as my sites were growing fast. Had not one problem on the dedicated server.
I think of choice of hosting is going to depend on personal experience. In fact, I did not have good experience with HG despite still being with them. Thanks for the tips when choosing good decent SEO web hosting.
Well you are the first person I have seen to have a bad experience but I am sure there are more…After all they have millions of customers. Sorry to hear that you had a problem with them. Maybe they can make up for it in the future?
Nice post, Hosting with the right and best Web Hosting is a great challenge to web masters, in some cases we fight to have the cheapest hosting company neglecting the poor services that follows
Great post and right on the money. We use Hostgator and they have done a great job. Your probably to the point with all sites that you use a dedicated server? Which is one of the big advantages of other low cost web hosts that just offer shared hosting plans.
Thanks for the post that reinforces our choice.
i don’t think so but i do believe that such templates really exist which are search engine friendly one of my template really helped me to increase my ranks.
My host has some SEO options. I never really looked into it because they require payment.
I do believe that there is no website hosting that is SEO friendly, but surely there are some settings and combination of services that search engine really like, and prefer high ranks while SERP.
The loading speed is the most important factor, while the uptime is the serious problem for everyone. If the web-hosting service not able to keep up the website 24/7 online, then I guess it is waste of money.
I’ll say that my host has those good feature you mentioned. They give extra SEO and optimization tool for a better website. i do love this post and i say thanks for sharing with us 🙂
I use HostGator and I think it’s the best hosting I like it thanks for sharing !
hi Mitz,
I think it’s exist. For an online marketing campaign search engine placement is crucial for your website. That is why it is important to start with getting a reliable SEO friendly web hosting service to manage the search engine traffic selling products and services from your website. You need to consider numerous features in the web hosting selection process, as there are countless web hosting providers out there. Chances are most online business might experience problems if your hosting provider does not have a superior customer service and technical assistance. You definitely need a web hosting company with excellent customer service.
Yes if you cannot get ranked then you site will have a noose around its neck from the start. And I am all in for customer service. Hostgator has helped me a number of times over the years..
Yes, always make sure to backup your blog everyday just in case a nightmare decides to show its face.
For Internet Dreams, I really need to improve the speed of the blog.
Hopefully, it will help me get better rankings on Google.
Thanks Mitz!
I’ve never yet tried hostgator, but i’ve heard many awesome reviews about this. One of my friend has reseller account and hosted around about 50sites on it, he said their clients are very happy because the site loading speed is awesome.
Yes that sounds right. They really make an effort to be updated and fast. 🙂
Thanks for sharing the opinions on friendly web hosting services. Choosing a secure and reliable hosting service is really important for an eCommerce website nowadays. Great job!
Good Website Hosting is the key for success Online! As a blogger you have to rely on best hosting service with efficient loading time & very less down times! I have used hostgator and it is quite reliable hosting service!!
Very informative post.
The roles of hosting is very co-related with the search engines.
Well i use Go-daddy, and found that it lacks in user interaction, with no toll free numbers, no chat option.
Really hostgator is very efficient hosting sites providing a very good control panel with quiet search engine friendly speeds.
Yes I have tried Godaddy and I it was never as good as Hostgator. 🙂
Hi Mitz,
Important discussion raised again. Search engine friendly hosting is an uncommon topic but as you have mentioned in the post itself , performance these days is crucial. The waiting time of users on mobile devices is generally less that desktops and these days mobile usage has also increased
Backup are also important for any reason at any time.
Thank for this quality article.
Hi Suhas
Yes performance is crucial when your are competing with millions of other businesses doing the same thing. 🙂
Hello Mitz,
You are correct in that speed of a web host is very important. But if you’re just starting out it’s often something that get’s overlooked. In most cases a site owner cannot even afford a Dedicated Server.
I know from experience that even mid-sized business will still purchase the cheapest shared plan without consideration of performance. And speed only becomes a factor when the site get’s a lot of traffic.
My advice to your readers is if their server is slow and yet there is little traffic on the site, it’s time to shop around for a better provider.
Hi a great post and very timely for me! I currently use GoDaddy for my webhosting plan. Which is currently up for renewal. June 2o13. This would be the start of my second year. Many of these webhosting companies offer Search Engine Optimization add ons for extra $ Are they worth the money? I guess once Google has found you and your site is listed, along with all the backlinks created this tool is nolonger required
The thing is with Godaddy…I have never seen so many add ons in my life… Are they any good? Well I am sure they can work, even the SEO add on, but do you need it, No. 🙂
Well, I don’t think there is any SEO friendly web hosting. And yeah free hosting sucks, better to use blogspot instead of it!
Hi Mitz,
Quality hosting is a must for a website. I also recently upgraded to VPS from shared hosting with hostgator and so far it has been an excellent experience.
Hi
I’m really struggling with godaddy and planning to move to better host and I believe hostgator is what everyone has been recommending to me, even though I’ve my options open.
Thanks for this share.
Sapna
I have to agree with you. Any quality web hosting service is SEO friendly. For an example, I wouldn’t really call the web hosting service I use at the moment a SEO friendly hosting service because at times the servers are down. Although, it is pretty fast.
Informative article. No wonder you got many Good comments here. 🙂
Hi Mitz,
Great article. In my opinion, good hosting is very important. You may host your site on a server that also hosts some sites which are involved in spam activities. In this case, your site will also be affected.
Great article, once again.
Antal
Very helpful topic Mitz….. I use Hostgator, the performance is very satisfactory.,
I’m a regular visitor of this site and as usuall found a very informative article. Great Mitz. Keep going!
Hey Mitz, this is really very interesting and helpful post. Thanks for sharing.
Having a good host is everything. I wish I had read this article when I was a newbie, I had to learn the hard way. Thanks for sharing.
of course, whenever you have to opt for the web hosting sites, check for the customers of that site. Check for the online support and the site load time most of the websites hosted by it have.
nice article Mitz,
Most of the blogger knows that Google also decides the search rankings of a blog on the basis of its loading time therefore the concept of search engine friendly web hosting or simply Google friendly web hosting exists.
the first thing to be done before buying a web hosting is to check its bandwidth and server speed. if your hosting responds very slow than it will ruin your search rankings…
nice and very informative article BTW 🙂
This is a very helpful article for a newbie like me. I didnt knew that having a good host is so important. I use godaddy but I don’t recommend it!
Thanks for sharing! That great many people say about hostgator but I just ipage because is offer special deal for me.., I check my website speed with pingdom and it is okay. Thank for sharing I never heard about pingdom.
Not sure if we’re allowed to name names here, but as someone who’s probably worked with a gazillion different webhosts (I used to build websites for a living), I’m a huge HostGator fan! I honestly don’t think any other web host can match the ‘Gator’s price-to-performance, and judging by some of the comments here, most of the people would agree with me.
Your piece got me re-examining the loading times on my own site. I have now been messing around with W3Total Cache and Pingdom for the past two hours!
I think I have optimised it.
Hey Milica
Thanks for this awesome tips. And I am really happy to know that BasicBlogTips is hosted at Hostgator. I am also hosted my blog GlobalCraze at Hostgator. I liked their support and services.
Thanks for explaining us about search engine friendly hosting.
hey mitz – We never firstly write copy or design for search engines but for people and are not worried that much about page rankings. If you are good at the business you do – word of mouth is much stronger.
Milica, Hostgator seems as though it has been a very reliable host for you. We’d consider using them but as we’re based in Europe we’d like to be hosted on a UK ip address, I believe Hostgator only offers US ips….Is that correct?
I have local (Australian) sites hosted on hostgator and world wide targeted sites. I see no difference at all when it comes to SEO…
Currently, I have no need to worry about web hosting because all my blogs run on Blogger platform. But sooner or later, I will be migrating to WordPress because of all the suggestions given to me by Ileane mam.
Then I would be seriously considering this post 🙂
Nice information Mitz…
Probably the newbie at blogging has been attracted with this words, They actually not listen on SEO, They want to improve SEO in simple methods and waiting for great result, Laziness is a greatest enemy in blogging, Also listening in above terms is mush for newbies too,
Hello Mitz..
Ya I too favor of quality hosting.Hosting which hear you.One of my friend blog whole data is suddenly erased. This was the hosting side problem.From that I know the real value of quality hosting.He has not get that data yet .
yes I would hate for all my data to be gone. 🙂
I found your article on web hosting very useful Mitz. It is because I am new to blogging and learning tits- bits of it.
You are right Carl, they never promise to be high performance but there are always upgrades. I upgraded as my business grew. Sometimes people stay on small hosting packages while their sites require something better. 🙂
I would like to recommend HioxIndia and Webhostingpad hosting platforms. They have been with me through all the years, and never failed in providing a speedy and fault-free service. Yes, the site speed actually matters a lot, as it can enhance or spoil the user’s experience. I myself tend to close the site, which is taking too much time to load!
Yes webhosting plays important role in SEO. We should always go for reliable webhosting. Thanks for sharing this article.
of course, whenever you have to opt for the web hosting sites, check for the customers of that site. Check for the online support and the site load time most of the websites hosted by it have.
I’m using webhostingbuzz. Never tried any other web hosting till now but find the one I’m using very reliable.
Hostgator is also very good. I think most of the Asian people are using Hostgator.
I don’t really think that hosting matters in search engine ranking and in case if it matters a user using shared hosting will always have to suffer.
Read an interesting article after a while, well its known to everyone that blog loading time also matters when it come to SEO, and a good hosting can only give a better loading time. Thanks Mitz.
Sites running on a personalized server wil have greater advantage over unparalled one and among this advantages is seo
Hi Mitz,
Thanks for the great insight on Hosting! I have tried different hostings and I think Hostgator customer support is on top. Moreover, the I have rarely experience any down time with them. I recommend it amongst the best.
Great article, Mitz! If I may add, you can also use Google’s Page Speed Insight to get suggestions on how to make your site faster. For uptime watcher, I use various services such as Pingdom, Uptime Robot, Status Cake, Site 24×7, etc.