Most people lease hosting from a company just because they find a great deal. They don’t stop to think about the long-term effects of the company’s policies. Believe it or not, your web host can affect how well your site ranks in search engines. Let’s say you have a website, and no matter what you do, you just cannot seem to get high rankings. You have used all the proper SEO techniques, yet your website is hard to find. Have you ever stopped to think that your host may have something to do with it?
Search engines want to send their users to fast, reliable websites. If your host’s servers are slow, your pages load slowly, and page speed is one of the signals Google uses. If your site is often down when Google’s crawler visits, it may crawl your site less often or even drop pages from its results. Security matters too. When a hosting company is careless about security, hackers can break into websites and use them to send spam or spread malware, and Google warns searchers away from infected sites. A hacked or spamming site can also get the server’s IP address added to spam blacklists, which mainly affects whether your email is delivered. This isn’t always the site owner’s fault. Some websites are attacked by hackers who use the site’s email forms to send spam.
There are things that can be done to prevent such problems. Good hosts use fast, well-maintained servers, scan for malware, run firewalls, limit how much email each account can send and keep automatic backups. Educating customers on good practices is another good way to help them, and a good hosting company stays in touch with its customers through newsletters and a good support system.
The responsibility lies with both the hosting company and the customer. It is up to the hosting company to provide the means and standards, and up to the customer to follow them. Finding a good hosting company can be difficult. There are many out there, and knowing which one will serve you best is the challenge. Before buying from a hosting company, read independent reviews and check its community forums. You can learn a lot from customers’ posts, and see how well the company responds to support requests. If customers seem unhappy, or there are many complaints, it might be a sign that you should look elsewhere.
Your website is probably intended to be a source of revenue, or just a place for fun and entertainment. In either case, wouldn’t it be nice if people could find it? Don’t hurt your chances of hitting it big in the search engines even before you start. Find a good hosting company, and you will at least have a fighting chance.