Many people order their webhosting with out giving the options at hand much thought, but the reality of the matter is that there are some very significant differences between the choices of server on offer. These variations can have a huge effect on how SEO friendly your web site will be. The principle issues at hand relating to server choice that any website owner wants to pay attention to are the fact that URL’s should 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 wide range of servers, and thought I might share my findings relating to the benefits and disadvantages of each server type.
Microsoft IIS 6.0
The Microsoft IIS 6.0 server has been around for a long while now, and was released round 2003. Many web sites are still hosted on this type of server and actually the Microsoft IIS 6.0 has a market share of just over a quarter of all web sites at 27%. You’d be forgiven for thinking that a server with a following of so many customers must have some search engine optimization benefits, however actually the reverse is true, from an Organic SEO 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 web site is wide open to abuse should competitors wish to construct hyperlinks to case variations of your urls and cause you all sorts of canonical problems. Moreover, the fact that server configuration can’t be changed by the use of a user edited file comparable to Apache’s .htaccess, means that even the most mundane server configuration job, such as resolving non www. queries back to the www. domain can become a chore.
Microsoft IIS 7.0
Microsoft marketed this server as “new and improved” but the reality is that from an SEO viewpoint 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 management of server configuration to the end user, instead opting to maintain 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 clever people at lightspeed acknowledged the necessity to provide the end user with a means of configuring their server, and subsequently the lightspeed supports the .htaccess technique 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 fatal flaw with lightspeed servers, and that’s 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 same url as two different locations, and due to this fact two separate pages. If the folks over at lightspeed actually tackle this one major problem they are going to then have a server that would potentially wipe the floor with the only real competitors 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 extremely configurable, urls can easily be rewritten by the end user via a .htaccess file, that 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 may 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 SEO firm 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 web site today.
