Server location

Hi all

is is better to host a .co.uk domain name on a UK based server or doesnt it matter ?

More and more people in the UK seem to be using USA based servers due to the cheaper hosting costs.

 

basically it doesn't really matter
but from point of view access time - assuming that a.uk site mainly is about and for UK visitors
as well as for HW and support quality reasons - I would recommend european hosts.

the time when US based hosting was cheaper and/or better are long gone. these days european hosting definitely is fully comparable in price and generally superior in HW and support quality. I moved several months ago after 9+ yrs of US hosting back to europe and and far more than pleased with the results.

 

Hosting your website on UK based server might probably help as Search Engines would categorize your website as a UK website which might get your site better ranking in UK. Also your customers from UK get better browsing speed and your websites will load much quicker in comparision with US server.

 

If you have an option then go with the localized server together with the domain, I think that it matters to search engines...

p.l.u.r.

 

In a perfect world for Geo-Targeting you'd want ;

1. Site hosted on server in country
2. Country specific TLD
3. Local Language
4. Location in contact info

If you can do all those - great.. all the easier for targeting the UK market

 

indeed. if you target the uk market specifically then hosting the site in the uk will be worth the extra bucks. if you target the english speaking community in general then uk or us is quite the same.

 

i think everyone is already mentioned the important of the hosting in local UK server IF you have a targeted audience in UK. That will speed up the download speed and doesn't risk of down time in case there is a massive fiber optic cable breakdown (remember few weeks back what happen in Asia?)

 

Exactly what I wanted to say. But if you have the hosting in US, this .co.uk site will also be considered as english site for sure.

 

If you want to be targeting business from mostly the UK then you'd be missing out if your server wasn't based in the UK. Otherwise, it doesn't matter.
For instance, if you search Google.co.uk and choose the option 'search pages from the UK only' then if your website isn't hosted in the UK then it might not show in the results.

 

In my case it shows.

 

Depends on if you are targetting UK or US...

 

Just from my experience. I have a dot com site registerd with 1&1 .co.uk who happen to have their servers in holland.
You're possibly OK if you have a country specific domain and your server elsewhere.

 

I have a UK site and it was ranking well in the UK google search engine. I then moved it to the US and it then didn't rank so well.

 

No, it really does not matter. Our colocation facility is located in the US, yet 95% of our customers are located outside the US. Price and reliabilty seems to be the two governing factors in housing your server on a US based network.

 

I think they're talking for SEO purposes.. 'technically' speaking it is best to be hosted in the target country.. at least with Google this is true and I believe YaH spoke about it at the last PubCon (Vegas) - not certain where that one was from though...

It is part of what has been tentatively named 'owner profiles' . Included in said profiles are GEO Location of servers (By IP) as well as registration data and presumably the usual contact page info methods...

Geo-Targeted is best done as I mentioned.. that is TECHNICALLY of course.. the older the site (authority) the less it matters. But if one is Geo Targeting 'by the book' the method is sound...

With the ever lovin' IMHO condom - of course

 

does it effects these two countries?

what about france, australia, india, russia....???

 

The most complete answer !

 

What about back links?
having .co.uk links for website can help to get well ranked in local se means .co.uk

 

.co.uk domain name on a UK based server is also helpful for your country targeted business and local business.