A hosted website is stored on a server. Your hosting providers have many servers worldwide, but you should be aware of which website your server is located on. It is essential to consider while installing any server for your development requirements and for your business to ensure that this location works for your business. Suppose you have deployed a server and then used one of the IP geolocation websites and found that your server’s IP address does not match its location; what do you do? Unfortunately, these websites can be very unreliable. It doesn’t matter who is your hosting provider; the location of the server that your website is physically hosted on can affect your website results like web traffic, ranking, and visitors. In this article, we have discussed why the location of servers matters and how I can find out where is my server located?
Table of Contents
Why Does Your Server Location Matter?
Did you know that your web hosting server’s location plays a vital role in how your website functions? Where is my server located? How to find my server? The server location matters and impacts website speed, SEO rankings, loading times, and legal compliance. Let’s talk about each way.
Does The Server Location Affect Web Speed?
The server location affects the website’s speed from the end-visitor standpoint. When you host your website, you should consider where most of your website traffic is coming from. Why is it considered so important? Because the server location on which you host your website plays a vital role in your overall network latency and TTFB.
Does The Server Location Affect Legal Compliance?
If your website is located in one country and your server is located in another country, Keep in mind if your website is located in one country. Its servers are in another, you may encounter legal results.
- As a website owner, you must recognize how different countries approve different rules and regulations regarding information security. For example, GDPR(general data protection regulation) in Europe. Other countries also have different rules about how your data can be stored on their servers.
- If your hosting server is located in Canada and you want to know about Canadian data privacy, you must familiarize yourself with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act(PIPEDA).
Does The Server Location Affect SEO Ranking?
If a user stays on your website for a long time, they have a higher “dwell time” (the amount of time a user takes analyzing a web page before clicking back to search results). On the other hand, bounce rate tells us the percentage of the visitors who visit one page on your website only to click to another page on or off your website. Both are very important factors regarding SEO while creating their rankings.
However, suppose you register your domain name with a country TLD (“.ae” for the United Arab Emirates). In that case, you will not select your target country since Google already links these countries’ TLDs.
Suppose you don’t decide to specify a target country. In that case, Google will check all points of competitor websites and determine where is my server located based on the following factors:
- Your Server’s IP address
- Your website’s content, e.g., contact information details or content snippets available.
- Backlinks to your web page
If your website targets users worldwide, then choosing a specific server location isn’t needed. Instead, turn to a CDN (content delivery network) for quicker page loading.
What Is CDN?
CDN refers to Content Delivery Network. It is a group of servers distributed across the globe to store and deliver assets such as videos and images to your website visitors more quicker.
The main function of a CDN is to unload any bandwidth shear on your original hosting server to somewhere else. This is often the server nearest to the website user who’s trying to load your website in the first place. While some content gets loaded from the closest CDN server, the rest gets loaded from your hosting server, which as a result, speeds up the page delivery for your website. That’s why Temok’s Shared Hosting plans to ensure that your website performance is compatible with global audiences.
How Can I Find Where Is My Server Located?
Before finding out where your server is located, you have to find out what your website’s IP address is? The easiest way to find the IP address is by using the command prompt (CMD), but there are also many other apps how to find out where a website is hosted. We’ll show you how to find who is hosting your website’s IP address using the command prompt.
How to Find Your Website’s IP Address
Open The Command Prompt
Press the key ‘windows’ and ‘R’ to open the run box to open the command prompt. When the run box is opened, type “cmd” into the run box and press enter.
Type “Tracert” And The Website’s URL Into The Command Prompt
Now type “tracert” and the website’s URL into the Command Prompt box and press the ‘Enter’ button.
Note The IP Address Next To The Website’s URL
You will see an IP address next to the website’s URL on the line that says “Tracing route to.” That is the website’s IP address, and you can use it in the next section to find your server location.
How To Find The Location Of The Website’s IP Address
If you have your website’s IP address, you can use any IP tracer to find out the location of the IP address.
Paste Your IP Address Into The Search Bar
Simply paste the IP address into the search bar, and press the ‘Enter’ button.
Find Your Web Server Location
When you search your website URL or IP address, you will see a domain summary where you can view your web server location.
How Can I Find Out The Audience Location?
Hosting your website and targeting your visitors in the same location will increase your performance. If you don’t have a particular audience, how can you find out where your audience is? You don’t need to be worried about it. There is a tool called Google Analytics. With its help, you can easily track the geolocation of your audience.
You should consider where most traffic is coming from and make sure that your website is hosted there. In specific areas, it may cost more, but you shouldn’t cheap out on customer satisfaction as it will cost you in the long run anyway.
Conclusion
We hope this article has helped you a lot in understanding where is a website hosted and how to find your website’s IP address and where is my server located, as well as what impact the server location can have on your website.
After building and hosting a website, make sure your website loads faster. Your web hosting server and target audience should be in the same location for faster loading speed. It will minimize the distance between your server and the audience.
The audience is the key to a successful business. So, host your website in the exact location, as it boosts your website’s ranking. Using tools like Google Analytics can help you let down your target audience, and if you need to serve different locations, a content delivery network (CDN) can work wonders.