@fkanehl 232524 wrote:
Make sure you target the site in Webmaster Tools to your targetted country, this helps a lot for Google.
In terms of hosting location, it’s wrong to assume the hosting location is an important ranking factor. Just take several ‘big’ niches beside casino as well and you’ll find enough sites being hosted in offshore countries and still ranking among top5.
It’s also wrong to assume it’s not! There was a test done, by a friend of mine with sports betting website, testing the Google target function, and the hosting country and just how much they affect rankings.
In the global search site A that had only Google Webmaster Geo set, outranked site B hosted in the UK, but when a local search was made (Search in pages with UK only), site B outranked site A.
Make no mistake a lot of people use this option, so if you wanna get the highest possible ranking for a given country you better host it there. I know it’s a stupid method that Google implies, but this is what it is, and we have to go with it.
@seb About hostgator, have you read their T & Cs lately:
Examples of unacceptable material on all Shared and Reseller servers include:
- Lottery/Gambling Sites
Examples of unacceptable material on all Dedicated servers include:
- Lottery/Gambling Sites