Many people order their web hosting with out giving the options at hand a lot thought, however the truth of the matter is that there are some very important differences between the choices of server on offer. These differences can have a huge impact on how SEO friendly your web site will be. The main issues at hand concerning server choice that any web site owner needs to pay attention to are the fact that URL’s ought to be case sensitive, and server configuration should be in the hands of the domain owner and not the web host. As knowledgeable provider of SEO Services I have experience of working with a variety of servers, and thought I would share my findings regarding the advantages and disadvantages of every server type.

Microsoft IIS 6.0

The Microsoft IIS 6.0 server has been around for a long while now, and was launched around 2003. Many web sites are still hosted on this type of server and in fact the Microsoft IIS 6.0 has a market share of just over 1 / 4 of all websites at 27%. You would be forgiven for thinking that a server with a following of so many customers must have some Organic SEO benefits, but actually the reverse is true, from an search engine optimization perspective the Microsoft IIS 6.0 is a bit of a dog, the total lack of case sensitivity in urls for example, means that your website is wide open to abuse should competitors wish to build hyperlinks to case variations of your urls and cause you all kinds of canonical problems. Moreover, the fact that server configuration can’t be changed via a user edited file such as Apache’s .htaccess, means that even the most mundane server configuration activity, such as resolving non www. queries back to the www. domain can turned out to be a chore.

Microsoft IIS 7.0

Microsoft marketed this server as “new and improved” however the reality is that from an search engine optimisation point of view there is little to smile about. Microsoft still failed to recognize the need for case sensitive urls, and in true Microsoft style they also failed to hand over control of server configuration to the end user, instead opting to keep the existing server side control panel server management arrangement which was employed in their earlier IIS releases.

Lightspeed Servers

Lightspeed servers are an enormous step up from the servers on offer from Microsoft, and are, as their name suggests lightspeed servers are very quick performers. The intelligent individuals at lightspeed acknowledged the necessity to provide the end user with a method of configuring their server, and therefore the lightspeed supports the .htaccess method of configuration as used by apache servers. Lightspeed supports all commonly used apache .htaccess configurations. The improved caching for .htaccess means that the lightspeed actually outperforms apache servers regarding the time required to serve a page. Nevertheless, there remains one deadly flaw with lightspeed servers, and that is the lack of a case sensitive file system. Any experienced SEO will tell you that search engines will view two different case variations of the identical url as two different locations, and subsequently two separate pages. If the folks over at lightspeed actually tackle this one major problem they may then have a server that might potentially wipe the floor with the only real competition they have, that is to say the top dog of servers, the apache/linux.

Apache Linux.

The apache / linux server is the most popular server out there, and for good reason. It supports case sensitive URL’s as standard and is highly configurable, urls can easily be rewritten by the end user through a .htaccess file, this is small text file that allows server configuration to be altered through FTP. Resolving non www. queries can be achieved in a matter of two minutes, and server security can be configured just as rapidly and easily. No other server available on the market can match the Apache server for its Organic SEO friendliness, despite the fact that apache servers are actually now quite old. Apache has been the worlds most popular server since 1996, and is still the one that providers of SEO Services, across the globe will recommend.

High Impact SEO Services, are an award winning search engine optimization company based in Leeds. HISEO boast a formidable record of attaining results in highly aggressive markets. For details of the SEO Packages on offer at High Impact SEO, check out our website today.

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