Personally, I’m not 100% convinced, and even if Google does pay attention to speed of the server (load speed of the page is another matter) then I’m sure it’s significance is minor compared to many other things I’d consider first if my SEO needed improving.

That said…  a fast loading website (helped by a fast server) is clearly an important thing – moreso for users looking to minimise the time they spend hunting down info or browsing for products/services to buy online. 

At NSDesign, we had a hunch that our servers were among the fatest in the UK, especially since we’re what you might call a “budget host” (at £25 for a standard shared linux host – we’re certainly in the “budget” price range), so we did a little research…

Independant “performance benchmarking” site www.webperf.net lists 170 UK Webhosts, and regularly tests their performance (measuring the Mean Rate in K/Sec – ie: the speed!).  We’re currently at a respectable position 16, well ahead of many of the major Hosting “giants” (the ones you see advertising full page in .NET magazine).  A quick check of the 15 hosts above us, and it’s no surprise that on average, most of these companies charge considerably more than us, with a few just specialising in providing high-end dedicated servers (no end-user hosting at all).

Something to proud of for certain, but how do we compare to the uk host that’s claiming to be so fast that even google prefers them?  Well – unfortunately they don’t list themselves in Webperf, so we resorted to a quick a simple speed test of their own website homepage using www.alertra.com and also did the exact same on the NSDesign.co.uk homepage.

Once we’ve removed the duplicate test locations, the above results show that on average (across the globe), we’re over 60% faster, and when tested in the UK (the London test), our access was over 40% quicker.  FORTY PERCENT quicker than (if we believe the hype) one of the UK’s fastest hosting companies.  Not bad for a little webhost from Glasgow.  Maybe helps explain why our own Google Search listings are so highly placed….  page1, position1 for keywords such as “Web Hosting Glasgow”, and “Linux Hosting Scotland”.  Server speed, or just damn fine SEO?  You can decide, but no matter the conclusion, well done us