Thread by @noelcetaSEO

Client spent $15K on content.
$10K on link building.
$5K on technical optimization.

Traffic still sucked.

The problem? $5/month shared hosting.

Server response time: 3.2 seconds.
Google crawled 80% less than competitors.

Switched hosting → traffic increased 210% in 5 weeks: 🧵👇

1/ Server response time kills rankings

TTFB (Time to First Byte) matters:

Under 200ms: Excellent
200-500ms: Good
500ms-1s: Problematic
Over 1s: Rankings killer

Client's cheap hosting:

- TTFB: 3,200ms
- Google crawled slowly
- Crawl budget wasted
- Pages took weeks to index

Competitor on good hosting:

- TTFB: 180ms
- Google crawled aggressively
- Fast indexing

2/ The shared hosting disaster

Shared hosting problems:

- Share server with 100+ sites
- One site gets traffic spike → your site slows
- Limited resources (CPU, RAM)
- Slow database queries
- No server-level caching

Client on GoDaddy shared:

- 500 sites on same server
- Neighbor site got DDoS attack
- Client's site went down
- Google couldn't crawl for 3 days
- Rankings tanked

3/ The hosting hierarchy

Shared hosting ($5-15/month):

- Okay for small sites (<1K visitors/day)
- Not okay for SEO-focused sites
- Resource limitations hurt

VPS ($20-100/month):

- Dedicated resources
- Better performance
- Good for growing sites

Managed hosting ($30-200/month):

- Optimized for speed
- Automatic updates
- Built-in caching
- Best for serious SEO

Dedicated server ($100-500/month):

- Full server control
- Enterprise sites
- Overkill for most

Client switched from shared ($7/mo) to managed ($49/mo).
TTFB went from 3,200ms to 140ms.

4/ Server location matters

Problem: Server in Singapore, audience in US.
Result: 200-300ms latency before content even loads.

Solution:

- Server near target audience
- Or use CDN (Cloudflare)

Client test:

- Server in US: 150ms response
- Server in EU: 380ms response to US users

30ms difference = ranking impact.

CDN solved it globally.

5/ Database optimization nobody does

Slow database = slow site.

Check query time:

sql

- `*- MySQL slow query log*
SET GLOBAL slow_query_log = 'ON';
SET GLOBAL long_query_time = 1;`

Common issues:

- Missing indexes on large tables
- Unoptimized queries
- Too many database calls per page

Client's product pages:

- 247 database queries per page
- 3.2 second load time

Optimized to 12 queries:

- 0.4 second load time

Google crawled 5x more pages.

6/ The hosting features that matter for SEO

✅ SSD storage (not HDD)

- 10x faster
- Mandatory in 2025

✅ HTTP/2 or HTTP/3

- Faster loading
- Better Core Web Vitals

✅ Server-level caching

- Redis or Memcached
- PHP OPcache

✅ CDN integration

- Cloudflare, etc.

✅ Automatic backups

- For emergencies

✅ 99.9%+ uptime guarantee

- Downtime = lost rankings

❌ Don't need:

- Unlimited bandwidth (marketing)
- Unlimited storage (fake)

7/ Recommended hosting for SEO

Hetzner VPS is the best all-round, but requires some technical knowledge.
Other options:

Small sites (<50K/month traffic):

- Cloudways ($14/mo)
- SiteGround ($20/mo)
- Both have server-level caching

Medium sites (50K-100K/month):

- Kinsta ($35/mo)
- WP Engine ($30/mo)
- Managed WordPress with optimization

Large sites (100K+/month):

- Cloudflare Workers + R2
- AWS with custom setup
- DigitalOcean managed
- Hetzner

Client moved to Kinsta:

- Page load: 2.8s → 0.9s
- TTFB: 3,200ms → 180ms
- Crawl rate: +340%
- Traffic: +210%

Testing your hosting:

□ GTmetrix: Check TTFB
□ Pingdom: Test from multiple locations
□ WebPageTest: Detailed waterfall
□ GSC: Check crawl stats (increasing = good)
□ Uptime monitoring (UptimeRobot)

Bad hosting = invisible ceiling on growth.

Fix hosting first.
Then optimize everything else.