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Q: If our IT department wants to change the server that our website resides on, will this affect our search engine rankings?
A: A change in your server (which will be a change in your website’s IP address) or website hosting service does not need to affect your search engine placement. Just be sure of a few things:
- Make sure the website doesn’t go “down” for any period. Have all the site files tested and ready on the new server before making the switch.
- Do not change any URLs.
- Watch out for capitalization issues. Some servers are case-sensitive while others are not. If this is the case with your switch, then you should run a site-wide link check after the switchover to be sure that all links are working (here’s a free online link checker), and spend some time checking for inlinks from other sites and making sure that they are still functioning. If necessary, you may need to set up 301 redirects (your IT department will know what this is) from caps/noncaps URLs to lowercase URLs.
- Keep the old site files accessible on the old server for a period of time (some experts recommend a day, some a month) after the switchover. This will allow websites and search engines to update their caches.
- Test, test, test! After site launch, run a “site:www.mysite.com” search on Google and click on the links to be sure that everything is behaving just the way you – and your potential customers – expect. (see our Handy Search Shortcuts for other cool ways to search for your site)
- Consider possible issues with international SEO targeting. Your server’s geographical location can be a factor; see Will an International Server Location affect My Google Ranks? for more info.
Here are a few other helpful articles on changing servers, hosting service, or domains:
- A 2003 article by Taming the Beast offers lots of great general tips on changing servers and addresses some specifics of moving hosts from one country to another.
- A very helpful and detailed posting from Google’s well known engineer, Matt Cutt’s, spells out the best practices for moving to a new web host.
We wish your site the best of luck at its new home, and don’t forget to invite us to the housewarming party!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
How does moving a website to a new IP address affect website ownership from Google’s point of view? I made the mistake of building a website that points to my main website but both websites were hosted on the same IP. If I move my smaller website to a new IP address will Google remember that this website use to be on the same IP address as my main website and not count the back link?
HI Carl,
I don’t know if Google will recognize this or if it affects the value of the links. Although, naturally, it’s good to maximize any power from domains you own or control, in the grand scheme of things your best bet will be to look outward toward ways your site can be “linkworthy” and gain links from domains other than those you own.
I have the same question: I received an email from my host provider ‘We’re very pleased to inform that we have acquired brand new top of the line servers, and all accounts will be moved on May 1st, at 8.00 PM EST.
This process will take around twelve hours, and domain propagation will depend on your ISPs, which will probably take about 2 to 24 hours.’
Will this affect my search engine placement? Thanks.
Hi Diana,
I wouldn’t expect your host moving to a new server to cause a problem for search engine ranks. If your host goes about this the right way, your site shouldn’t even have any down time. Do be sure that you download and save a copy of your entire site, if possible, before the switch just in case something goes wrong during this process.
Best,
Gradiva
It caused problems for me. I changed servers with no site down time recently just before the July 4th page rank update. My site is fairly new and Ive been ranking very well in a competitive niche. Since changing servers I noticed a 140 place drop for my targeted keyword phrase and my site visitors are now 2 to 3 people per day down from almost 50. Perhaps it may be because my domain is fairly new or Googles’ PR reshuffle but I can’t really blame it on anything else. I wish I would have waited till after the Google update. If you can I would suggest the same to everyone too. If I see a dramatic rise in PR within a few weeks after the update I’ll come back and post a comment here.