LONDON, Nov 24, 2008 (PR Newswire Europe via COMTEX) --
Managed Hosting can Boost in-Country Google Rankings by up to 30%,
Helping Ensure ROI for International Search Marketing
- Local hosting boosts search results for international sites

- .com domains without local hosting lose out on up to 30% of potential
traffic

- Local hosting, Virtual local hosting and CDN most effective for
boosting search engine visibility

- Full report available here
(http://www.ntteuropeonline.com/fileadmin/media/PDF/reports/Effective_Digital_ Host_Close_Report_Summary_-_12.11.08.pdf)

Managed Hosting specialists, NTT Europe Online
(http://www.ntteuropeonline.com/) today revealed the findings of the
'Host Close' report
(http://www.ntteuropeonline.com/fileadmin/media/PDF/reports/Effective_Digital_Ho
st_Close_Report_Summary_-_12.11.08.pdf)

which details how managed hosting services can help boost a brand's natural
exposure on Google by 30%, clarifying for the first time the importance of
web hosting locations on Google rankings.
The report, carried out for NTT Europe Online by independent
online marketing company, Effective Digital revealed that whilst having a
local domain name is the most important factor for successful Search Engine
Optimisation (SEO), websites which don't have hosting in the country which
they are targeting are significantly disadvantaged in Google rankings. Other
success factors for international search marketing include the language used
for the domain name, data file names, and the language used on the page
itself as well as the server location and language of sites which link to it.
Websites failing to account for these factors could fail to appear on Google
whatsoever.
"We are always being asked by international clients and
digital agency partners about how server location and managed hosting can
help boost all-important Google rankings and there has been plenty of
anecdotal evidence, but no clear answers. This research has finally confirmed
that the physical location of your server is one of the key factors for
Google exposure for international sites. It has always been hard to respond
to these questions and we knew we had to clarify the answers once and for
all, for our own site as much as anyone else's," said Rob Steggles, Marketing
Director Europe for NTT Europe Online (http://www.ntteuropeonline.com/).
The location of where a site is hosted is set to become a
priority for digital marketers and SEO experts alike. Gifford Morley-Fletcher
of Effective Digital said of the report: "SEO is often referred to as a dark
science and this research pulls in another element to add into the mix,
especially for .com's which don't have local domain names. We targeted search
phrases relevant to several western European companies using different
versions of Google (.co.uk, .fr,. de, .es and .com) for different searches.
The results show that, in some cases exposure on Google can be boosted by 30%
and that some major international websites could risk gaining no exposure
whatsoever - certainly quite an alarming prospect."
"The report proves the importance of hosting location on
search rankings for the first time and highlights the three main ways in
which a website's managed hosting can help local rankings. First of all, you
can host all regional websites locally. Secondly, you could use virtual local
hosting, which uses virtualization servers in each territory you are serving
and thirdly, you can use a content delivery network to cache and serve your
data in the region you are targeting," added Morley-Fletcher.
About the report
Available to download here
(http://www.ntteuropeonline.com/fileadmin/media/PDF/reports/Effective_Digital_Ho
st_Close_Report_Summary_-_12.11.08.pdf)

NTT Europe Online commissioned Effective Digital to

investigate the influence of the physical location of a web server on an
international web site's ranking in the search engines - in order to
determine whether or not hosting a site in the country it is targeting has a
positive influence on where it is placed in relevant search results.
Combining on-line research with a tailor-made experiment, Effective Digital's
investigations produced the following conclusions:
International SEO, like local SEO, involves the optimisation
of several elements of a web site, both off and on-site. The difference comes
in the order of importance of the elements to be optimised, as the key
challenge is to ensure that the search engines can identify a site's location
in order to index it for the most relevant audience. Sites identified as
'local' will rank higher than those with an unclear target location. The top
5 elements in order of priority are:
1. Domain name and use of Country Code Top Level Domain, if at
all possible - for example, in Italy, a site with a .it domain will register
higher than a site with a .com/it domain.
2. The I.P. Address of the site's web server - Search Engines
rank local sites higher within that geographic area, having local hosting is
especially important if a website doesn't have a Country Code Top Level
Domain.
3. The language used in the domain name and file names of
pages - as with point 4, Search Engines use language to detect and rate a
website's locality and therefore relevance, boosting its ranking.
4. The language used in the text of the site itself and
defined in the relevant META tags - as with point 3, language is a key
element in gauging the relevance of a site.
5. The language used by and location of sites linking to the
web site - the strength of third-party links is influential in boosting the
authority of a site. The same goes for measuring a site's relevance to local
markets.
About NTT Europe Online
NTT Europe Online provides managed hosting, security and
application management services to businesses globally. These services
provide the reliability, availability, security and scalability needed to
underpin business success online.
NTT Europe Online is certified to ISO27001 for Information
Security Management and, as part of NTT Communications, has the global reach
and scale to support businesses of all sizes. NTT Communications is the
global data and IP services arm of the Fortune Global 500 telecom leader,
Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corporation (NTT). For further information visit
http://www.ntteuropeonline.com.
About Effective Digital
Effective Digital is an on-line marketing consultancy specialising in the
use of Search - SEO and PPC - and other on-line channels, to drive targeted
traffic to web sites. Our in-depth knowledge is based on over 14 years of
internet experience, and over 5 years of international search marketing
experience. For further information, visit
http://www.effective-digital.co.uk.
For further details, please contact: Joseph Thomas / Josh Turner, Brands2Life,
Tel: +44(0)207-592-1200, ntteo@brands2life.com

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