Country Related Domain Hosting & SERPs

I would like to learn about your experience with country related domains like .de .nl .gr and so on.
I wonder if a .gr domain hosted on a Greek server would do better than a .gr domain, hosted on a US server.

I'm comparing web hosting packages all around the globe and i found that in Germany for example, a for the US normal web hosting account, looks like a cheap re-seller account. They offer some MB Web space and very little traffic for huge Euros. No features, 1 MySql Database per account for 6.99 is normal!

So a German webmaster with a .de domain would be much better off with an account on a US based server. The question now is; how does this, if t all, influence the SERPs? I personally think it wouldn't matter much where the server is located as long as the content is relevant and in German or Greek or Dutch or whatever.

Please let me know what your experience is with local domain names and foreign hosted domains?
I'd hate to host my .de domain on a German server! 

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try to host the domain in the DNS from served from each country:

.de = german DNS server
.nl = dutch DNS server

my dutch website was in the beginning hosted in some belgium DNS server and I got a lot of belgium sales.

Did i understand that right olaf; You say it's better to host the .de domain in Germany on grounds of generating sales?

That's not actually what i referred to; I would be more interested in the search engine position of your site in Netherlands.
Do you feel that you got better website positions resulting of the fact that you moved your domain to a dutch server?

The raise on sales in Belgium could be circumstantial since the two languages are very similar in writing. that wouldn't be the case by a US hosted .de or .nl account.

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these sales I talking about are result from searches in the local google search.

check this query to get an idea: 
http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&q=web+design+templates&btnG=Zoeken&meta=lr%3Dlang_nl

(my website is finalwebsites)

Search for "óêõëïôñïöÝò" (dog food in greek)

I just checked and artemispetfood.gr comes up first
in both google.gr and google.com
and it is hosted on one of my reseller accounts
served from american soil

thus I don't think it really matters where you are hosted
Giorgo

@ Olaf - Well done! I see your website on second place in Google.nl by 38.100 search returns.
What I'd like to know is if you had a similar or the same position for this website on Google.nl while it was hosted in Belgium?

I had an answer from some Dr.Schwarz at the Google Webmaster Forums where i asked the same question (in German) and he stated that my thoughts where right, as long as the language of the text is in the same language as the url ending... and more important, the content is relevant, it won't make a difference for Google bots where they are hosted. I'm still searching for an answer that would verify this one statement.

@ Giorgios - Thanks for checking, but the question was not whether the site is listed in Google.com or Google.gr at thee same place while being hosted in US. Even though your comparison indicates that it doesn't matter where it is hosted, Google .gr and .com both have only 1530 (exactly) search results to offer for the therm"óêõëïôñïöÝò" in Greek letters.
The variation in Olaf's case is far bigger: 38.100 vs 7.030.000 returns. (And the site is not in the top 100 at Google.com)

More important to my research is the fact that Olaf had hosted the domain in Belgium before so my question would be;

Was the website listed at GOOGLE.NL as good as it is now WHILE it was hosted in BELGIUM?

But to tell you the truth I would be more interested in a US - European example to get a clearer picture because of the similarity of the Belgium and Dutch language, especially in written form.

Maybe I am still not understanding your question but

"Was the website listed at GOOGLE.NL as good as it is now WHILE it was hosted in BELGIUM?"

its not a good to compare the same exact site at different points in time
and drawing conclusions about the Effects of the Hosting
because age of site might be coming in to play

That is also true. Still i have enough data together meanwhile to be quite certain about it. It doesn't matter where the domain is hosted. Just a good idea at the side: Ask before buying a hosting account in US if they accept European domains on their server. Not all of them do.

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