Response Time & Downtime: Effects on Search Engine Optimization

You've spent hours, months, or years building your SEO, and your web host server becomes slow, unresponsive, or downtime increases - your website ranking starts dropping.

The web host you choose is an important part of Search Engine Optimization. If your host suddenly becomes flaky and doesn't seem to be working toward correcting the issues affecting your website, its time to move on to another host who will provide reliable service.

Finding a Reliable Host:

• Sites that offer customer reviews are a great way to narrow down hosting companies. WebHosting Geeks is one resource for reviews and offers a rating system on services provided by a host.
• Uptime@BestHostRatings offers uptime statistics for many web hosting providers.
• Another good place to research is HostingSpeeds.com. They measure speed by two different tests: the page load test run on the web host server and the server speed test.
• A tool to Monitor Uptime / Downtime is also useful if you are testing a web host. Host Tracker will check the server periodically and send an e-mail or SMS message to you if an error occurs.
  

The best deal isn't always the best option. For SEO purposes, you will want a reliable host.