We have just checked the IP address location for a website we are developing for a redundancy insurance client.
Where clients provide us with their one website hosting we always check that it is a UK located IP address (unless of course it is for a non-UK/worldwide business). If we find that the IP address is not located within the UK we advise our client that this can significantly impact on search engine rankings for their website. This is because Google and other search engines look at the location of the IP address to make an initial assessment of the geographic location of the business and whether to return this website for a search within a geographic area. With local search becoming more important this becomes a more important factor in the SEO of a website.
