Get Rich Quick with Fast Hosting!
If you seriously think that faster hosting is all it takes to make a successful website you are very much mistaken. Sorry about that.
With every announcement made by Google there comes a stream of updates by service providers who try to use ‘the official word of Google’ to their advantage. Of course they will, it is business afterall.
So when Google recently officially confirmed speed is one of the ranking factors (you don’t say!) guess who jumps on that bandwaggon? Hosting providers.
UKFast recently claimed that simply by moving websites to their (faster) servers, clients have experienced massive improvements:
Well, here’s what happened to a selection of companies that recently moved their websites onto the fastest network in the UK.
* Sales increased by 300% in the first 2 weeks – Top Furniture
* Visitors increased from 4,000/mth to 60,000/mth within 8 weeks – All Join On
* 300% speed increase for SaaS provider – Foresite SPA
* Google page 1 ranking within 6 weeks of launch – Lets Stay UK
* 27% increase in conversion rate within 4 weeks – Troo Healthcare
* Boosted from page 4 to page 1 – Tomps.com
http://www.ukfast.co.uk/googlelove.html
Along with a number of my peers I have so many issues with this.
The examples used are pretty wild to say the least. There is no hard evidence that categorically proves moving servers was the reason being the improvements (assuming those improvements are genuine)
I’ve always considered website/page size (and download speed) as a factor in SEO. This is nothing new, it’s simply that Matt Cutts has confirmed it and the introduction of the speed tool in Google’s Webmaster Tools. The worrying part is there will be website owners all over doing nothing other than moving to a faster host and expecting the money to come flooding in. WHen it doesn’t who will they point the finger at? The SEO industry. Cheers UKFast for misleading website owners that getting higher ranks and paying a lower CPC is as simple as moving host (which comes with it’s own problems!) and cheers Google for giving them the ammo!
UKFast is promoting their recent ‘Roundtable SEO discussion’ as if to back up their message about the importance of speed (as if it is a new thing for 2010). Funny thing is, the discussion doesn’t back them up. This is my summary of what was said (but don’t just take my word on it. You can watch for yourself at http://ukfast.tv/round-tables-seo.html.)
SEO Roundtable Discussion with UKFast
UKFast hosts discussions with the UK’s leading experts, asking the question “What are the key aspects of SEO in 2010?”
Participants
- UK Fast Offices – Jonathan (chair?)
- And digital – Tom cheesewright
- Oomagoo – Matt Rycroft
- CSO Media – craig stone
- High Position – Terry Hefferman
- UKFast – Lawrence Jones (MD)
Video 1: UKFast January SEO Round Table highlights, part one (meeting highlights)
- Craig & Tom discuss quality content, focussed pages. nothing about speed.
- Jonathan asks about uses of Twitter. Input by Craig & Terry. Nothing about speed.
- UKFast MD talks about content changing and how its a good thing but not a massive SEO thing (erm?) who gets kind of interrupted by…
- Matt, who who talks about the importance of links.
- High Position discusses content and linking probably 60% of seo and by far the most important.
- UKFast MD asks where do you think speed figures? Matt adds it is a factor now acording to Matt Cutts. UKFast MD says he thinks it’s been a factor 3-4 years (but an ‘unspoken secret’!) States he has customers that have ‘done nothing else’ but move servers and have grown exponentially. Mentions PPC quality score driven by the speed of a website.
- High position agrees speed is one of the elements, but it is one of many factors. Refers to ‘fine tuning’ the engine.
- Discussion of black hat tactics holding back the industry.
Video 2: UKFast January SEO Round Table highlights summaries, part two (final note by each of panel)
- Tom Cheesewright summarises that with websites having richer content they require speedy hosting.
- Matt Rycroft mentions links and social media profiles. Nothing about speed.
- Craig Stone discusses importance of content and clients being enabled to edit and apply own SEO changes. No mention of speed.
- Terry Hefferman brings up universal search and how other elemenst now appear in the ‘organic results’ part of the page. No mention of speed.
- Lawrence Jones says its all about speed.
Now, is it just me or are the only people who actually mention speed as being an important factor those representing UKFast? Good on Terry Hefferman who in my opinion gave the most logical and balanced views but also fair dues to the others who also maintained logic and refused to add hot air to the big ‘fast hosting’ balloon that UKFast seemed desperate to pump up.
Even Matt Cutts (who wasn’t at the Roundtable discussion) says on his blog that site speed isn’t as big a deal as other factors:
“The main thing I want to get across is: don’t panic. We mentioned site speed as early as last year, and you can watch this video from February where I pointed out that we still put much more weight on factors like relevance, topicality, reputation, value-add, etc. — all the factors that you probably think about all the time. Compared to those signals, site speed will carry much less weight.”
As I said above, watch the video’s yourself as this is simply my own take on the discussions. Would love to know what you think. And if anyone at UKFast reads this I welcome your comments as long as it isn’t simply to repeat ‘we have seen this that and the other’ without any real evidence and hard data.
Hello Kay,
I thought I would respond to your blog as nobody else has. We’re promoting all of our Round Table discussions (including the discussion on SEO) not as marketing devices but as free, open and honest debates offering independent business advice to our viewers.
It stands to reason that we would mention speed as being one of the most fundamental aspects of web hosting as fast hosting is our area of expertise and in our experience has repeatedly proven to be absolutely essential to success online. There are indeed many other factors that contribute to success online, and some of those factors are dissected by our panellists as you point out. As someone who purports to be “constantly ahead in her thinking” I’m surprised that you seem to find our objective presentation of the various panellists’ diverse opinions on the subject so provocative.
In summary, there are many factors that contribute to success online, but if you seriously think you will make a successful website without fast hosting you are very much mistaken.
Jonathan Bowers
Communications Director, UKFast
Thanks for your comments Jonathan.
The reason I highlighted the videos and what prompted this post was because a UKFast representative came along to the Manchester SEO linked in group and started a discussion linking to those videos as testament:
Jessica Wilson – Marketing Assistant at UKFast (UKFast.Net Limited)
So that was not started as a marketing device?
You are missing the point of the issue I and other SEO’s have taken. Fast hosting is not all it takes to make a successful website and certainly not all it takes to propel a website in the ranks, which is what UKFast is claiming:
I don’t ‘purport’ anything. I’m very careful about that. That quote is a testimony. I use those, just as you do, as a promotional tool. The difference being that I do not use testimonies to promote some wild claim that I cannot back up with hard evidence.
In summary, fast hosting is absolutely an advantage for many reasons aside from any potential SEO benefit. But if you think that a website cannot be successful with ’standard’ hosting or that fast hosting is the magic formula to achieving high ranking in natural search you are very much mistaken.
Ignoring the video marketing/PR bits for the moment and starting with the issue of a faster host is better for SEO.
First of having the word fast in your name does not actually make you any faster then your competition only decent internal infrastructure and a competent team, with direct access to (if your indeed based in the UK) BT core will do that. As Kay mentioned its well known that page load times have had some relationship with rankings, at its most fundamental Google crawling mechanism is a browser client which won’t wait for ever if your page is slow to load or your DNS takes to long to bring back an IP then it will simply give up. If it can’t index your page it can’t rank it simples.
Now it also makes sense if you have a reliable host which can provide good load times to your “optimised code” that the number of people getting frustrated with your non loading site is going to decrease. We have all been in the scenario of waiting for a page to load and abandoned it. That said most of the slow pages are not down to hosts but crap code something unless ukfast are also doing website coding then it’s unlikely many users will see much if any benefit moving over.
Now to the marketing figures, I’m sorry but while testimonials are meant to be good they also have to be backed up. The move from a host on its own no matter how fast will not generate 300% increase in revenue unless there average sales volume prior was 1 and they had a good week. Normally when moving hosts sites take the time to launch a new design or marketing push I strongly suspect that if this was the case that probably had more to do with it then your amazing speeds.
I always use two simple tests when determining Testimonials worth, is it to good to be true? In this case yes and Is it so wild that a trading standards officer would cringe? As I say I hope you got the stats to back it up, i.e prove they changed nothing but there hosts for this amazing increase or they certainly will be cringing as they slap a potential unlimited fine on you.
Jonathan
I think UK Fast is a fine hosting company that delivers an excellent service, however your marketing has seriously over egged the speed factor. Very seriously. The roundtables are a nice marketing device but they clearly are just that, a marketing device. The issue is that you have strayed into territory where people are sensitive. The SEO industry has suffered for years from cowboys making unverfiable claims and selling gullible SMEs a pig in a poke. I dont for a second suggest that UKFast is unscrupulous by the way. However, in this case, you have made very strong unverifiable claims that cause or sector problems. Hence the response from some of the most senior and knowledgable practitioners in the North West.
Yes speed and resilience are critically important in hosting but the plain fact of the matter is that UKFast have made strong claims that are unjustifiable and, at this time, unverified. Without taking steps to reasonably address that issue, you are damaging your brand in front of a vocal client base.
I have to agree with Kay, Tim, and Simon here Jonathan, sorry. The pitch of your roundtables and the way you guys have come across in them make it look extremely bad for the points that Simon expressed above, as well as the marketing metrics you provided that Tim touched on. From a marketing perspective, as Tim said, you are appearing to take credit for a meteoric rise in revenue which simply has never been seen by me in 13 plus years, switching many clients from one hosting provider to another, without some form of direct push, be it press releases, community updates, newsletters, etc.
Yes, speedier pages have been shown to account for better conversions, even minimal speed increases, however, not to the extent you have described. Not speeding up a page alone. That said, I do agree that it helps.
As for being a ranking factor, at least at this time Google has stated plainly that it is a minimal factor and will only affect about 1% of searches. Your claims make it sound like merchants/webmasters are going to see dramatic improvements, when that simply is not the case. They will likely see no difference in rankings by switching to your hosting on that factor alone.
Seriously, so far the comments here have been civil. I have seen them get much worse, and others are sure to pick up this story. I would suggest to rethink things and make clearer your statements meanings before that can happen. Preventative damage control would be the proper terminology I think.
It would appear others are indeed already picking it up…
http://www.goosh.co.uk/online-marketing/i-introduce-to-you-a-new-type-of-snakeoil-salesman/
Thanks William, Simon & Tim for your comments
I was referred today to another blog post on this matter by Kev Strong. He makes an interesting comparisson between websites hosted by UKFast and those of his own clients.
http://www.goosh.co.uk/online-marketing/i-introduce-to-you-a-new-type-of-snakeoil-salesman/
I thought speed was only going to be a factor in less than 1% of searches (if Matt Cutts is to be believed). That’s hardly the huge, game changing issue that it’s made out to be by some hosts.
Hi Kay. Fantastic article, i must say. I wrote about UK Fast earlier with regards to their emailing campaign using the recent speed factor as an over-egged reason to upgrade you hosting ( goosh.co.uk ).
At the time i had not seen the roundtables (thank you for the indepth background btw) but it confirms what my inital thoughts were – a scaremongering tactic.
There isn’t a lot of credit given to the people who appear on camera.
Their name is flashed up on screen for a few seconds, but they aren’t even name checked on the UKFast Site.
It seems a shame that these people give up a few hours of they day, and may have even had their hair done especially for the event, and they aren’t given more “props”.
Really good article – I’ve had phone calls from UKFast and they wind me up no end with their dishonest marketing practices.
We’ve written a blog piece referencing this one with some tips on how to actually increase website speeds (no, don’t buy an “SEO Server”, what ever that is) which you can find here: http://snapshotmedia.co.uk/blog/the-importance-of-website-speed
Quite tempted to make a complaint to trading standards about UKFast to be honest…