During my many years online I’ve read numerous articles on search engine optimization, much of it is just a rehash of the same ol’ stuff.
When I see old news reprinted I try to understand, after all we are taught that we should write for our audience, right? And if our audience are newbies, what are you going to do.
Anyway, back to our topic of SEO. I’d say the more common SEO topics have been covered pretty well, however, rarely do I see the following topics discussed as much as the more common SEO topics. They can all play an important role when it comes to getting and keeping your blog visible in search engines. They are:
- Blog security
- Your site’s TLD
- Web server location
1. SEO and Blog Security
At first it might not seem like there’s much of a connection between search engine optimization and securing your blog, but the connection is real.
Like I mentioned in my article, WordPress Security: The First Thing You Should Understand, a simple Google search for “My Blog Was Hacked” will (now) return 716,000 results. Many hackers who crack into your website aren’t really there to simply crash your site, instead, they want to use it. Many times they’ll steal bandwidth and use your site to create dozens of spam backlinks to various sites.
What this has to do with SEO
If someone hacks your blog and uses it to create tons of spam links and Google finds out, you run a high risk of receiving one of those heart-stopping emails from Google informing you that your site has been removed from their search engine because it appears to violate their terms of use. So by securing your blog and thwarting possible hacks to your site, you can increase your chances your blog stays in the serps – which is the biggest SEO concern of all!
Still doesn’t seem like a big deal? Read this case study by Robin Harris, one of the bloggers over at ZDNet.
Don’t wait until it’s too late. I can’t stress enough the importance of securing your blog. If you need help with it, let me know.
2. SEO and your TLD
Wikipedia describes TLD as A top-level domain or domain name (TLD), is the last part of an Internet domain name, that is, the group of letters that follow the final dot of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is com“.
What this has to do with SEO
You want to show up in the search engine results where your target market is, right? Your TLD selection is probably one of, if not the most, important decision SEO-wise you are going to make.
Country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) are for websites and registrants of a particular geographic location. For example: .bz (Belize), .ca (Canada), .dk (Denmark), .ec (Ecuador), ie (Republic of Ireland), .uk (United Kingdom), .us (United States), .zw (Zimbabwe), etc.
.com is definitely the most widely used and is international. If your target market is either worldwide or in the United States, I’d say stick with .com.
As an example, if your target market / website visitors uses the Canadian version of Google, the Canadian version of Google is going to consider .ca websites highly important to this user.
3. SEO and Your Website’s Server Location
Here’s a big one not many people know about. The physical location of your website’s server is relevant in Google’s eyes.
I’ve already written on this topic, SEO Q&A: Does It Matter Where My Website’s Server Is Located? so I won’t regurgitate it all again.
Yes, I said regurgitate. I like it and think it’s funny, so it stays. 
What this has to do with SEO
Long story short, Google wants its search engine to be the best search engine out there. To do that, they have to need to give you, the Googler, the most likely websites that matter to you and will solve your problem. One of the things it will note is your computer’s IP address (that is, it will take note where in the world you live).
Once Google knows where you live, it quickly looks at web servers in your general location and tries to find if any websites are hosted on them which are relevant to your search query. Therefore, if your target market lives in Arizona, it might be wise to try and find a web host which owns servers located in Arizona. Just don’t go choosing your hosting company on that criteria alone.
How I know this is true?
First, I own a few websites and through my site statistics (mainly when the sites were new and had less backlinks to them) I noticed people who Googled my targeted search terms were arriving on my sites. The server was located in Fremont, California – and guess where the vast majority of my early site visitors lived (as noted by their IP address).
Second, instead of showing you a bunch of screenshots from my previous statement, why not take the word of two Google software engineers (Greg Grothaus and Shashi Thakur):
Does location of server matter? I use a .com domain but my content is for customers in the UK.
In our understanding of web content, Google considers both the IP address and the top-level domain (e.g. .com, .co.uk). Because we attempt to serve geographically relevant content, we factor domains that have a regional significance. For example, “.co.uk ” domains are likely very relevant for user queries originating from the UK. In the absence of a significant top-level domain, we often use the web server’s IP address as an added hint in our understanding of content.
Source: Google Webmaster Central Blog
As a side note, while I was drafting up this post one of our blog security upgrades customers emailed me showing me how someone tried to crack into his blog today. He was notified of the attempt via email and the intruder was locked out. You have to ask yourself, is adding security to your blog a priority for you?
May 25th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
It has always seemed weird to me that Google would take the location of your server into play considering the many hosting providers out there. I wonder if, with a big provider like GoDaddy.com, you can select which state you would like your server in. I am not sure that they have servers in more than one state, but it makes sense that they should..
Jim Gaudet’s last blog post..Tuts Plus – Mad Skills
May 25th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Of course only the Google engineers really know, but I suspect it has something to do with having multiple options to try and figure out how to return the best results for the Googler.
Our sister site, eVentureBiz.com, provides our customers with two possible options as to where you’d like your server to be located (California or the UK).
June 7th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
John,
Thought this video from Matt Cutts was relevant to this post, going to try and use html tags..
Basically he is saying that location does matter but for countries. But, I feel he didn’t answer it fully, because the whole local search is getting bigger now and I think that it will affect the searches if you run your domain from your own place.
Jim Gaudet’s last blog post..Costa Rica Spanish
June 15th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Hi John – This is good advice. Spam links are a nuisance but I never really thought about them causing major problems.