I have a directory in my country (Ireland) with a local domain extension,that is becomming popular both in my country,neighbouring countries-(UK,Germany etc) and in America.I currently have it hosted in Ireland,but I need to move site to faster hosting-will i lose the Irish and European traffic if I host in America?
you can also setup a .us or .co.uk domain for your directory. Use an IP to location database (e.g. www.ip2location.com) and make a 302 redirect from your main domain to an alternate domain hosted in somewhere else
I believe US can give you the best and the most affordable hosting options...but if you don't want a US server try in New Zealand, they have got some of the best hosting services...