Why the specific reception of country is important for marketing

[johnmarsh]

Something not many people know when choosing a web host is the importance of choosing a host that will aid your marketing and your website’s niche. This can be very important if you are running an online store depending on the geographic region you are focusing on. So first let’s start with an explanation of why this all depends on who your site’s visitors will be.
Most internet connections are very fast but it still matters where the physical server is hosted in terms of speed. If I was starting an online store focusing on customers in Texas the site is going to server faster to people from Texas if it is in Texas. Similarly if you are building a site aimed at United Kingdom residents you don’t want the server to be in the United States or even Europe in some cases. By hosting in a location near your customer base you are speeding up their access time to the server. This might not seem like a big deal but in a number of studies the importance of a quick loading page can mean a big difference in the number of conversions. Or if you are hosting a game server ping time will obviously matter when you are shooting your next zombie.
In terms of marketing it is also important in the eyes of Google and other search engines. One of the many factors for knowing whether they should rank you in a country specific search engine is dependent on your IP’s location as well as your domain name ending. By using a host in the country your site is serving you is sending one more indication to Google of where you should be ranked.
We have had plenty of customers at UK2 who came to us from USA based hosting and after they started using our servers which are in the United Kingdom they found that conversions increased and they had lower shopping cart abandonment rates. Which when you are running an online store are two very key factors. This is also why we offer our customers dedicated server hosting in both the United Kingdom and USA, we want to be able to give them the best of both worlds.

[compserv]

Most internet connections are very fast but it still matters where the physical server is hosted in terms of speed. If I was starting an online store focusing on customers in Texas the site is going to server faster to people from Texas if it is in Texas. Similarly if you are building a site aimed at United Kingdom residents you don’t want the server to be in the United States or even Europe in some cases. By hosting in a location near your customer base you are speeding up their access time to the server. This might not seem like a big deal but in a number of studies the importance of a quick loading page can mean a big difference in the number of conversions. Or if you are hosting a game server ping time will obviously matter when you are shooting your next zombie.

I'm not convinced this will make a huge difference. Just try a ping or tracert on a server in the US against a server in the UK (assuming you're in one of these countries). The difference is in milliseconds. Whilst it may make a difference for online gaming, it's not going to make a difference to how for example a shopping user perceives the speed. Far more important is the speed of the server hosting the site.

In terms of marketing it is also important in the eyes of Google and other search engines. One of the many factors for knowing whether they should rank you in a country specific search engine is dependent on your IP’s location as well as your domain name ending. By using a host in the country your site is serving you is sending one more indication to Google of where you should be ranked.

This seems to me a far more important reason for hosting locally. I often use the UK Only option in a Google search, and as it comes up with .com sites (which are UK based businesses), it must be using some kind of location information.

Another reason for chosing a host in your own country would be for cost consistency. With there being a 40% difference from low to high exchange rates between GBP and EUR in the last year or 2, and probably a similar change in the GBP to USD rates, I much prefer to know that what I have to pay from month to month remains consistent.

[mitchell]

I never really noticed speed being an issue when it comes to server location. In my browsing experience, I've had comparable speeds regardless of whether the server is in the US, UK, Europe or Asia. Current technology has made it so that access is fast from almost anywhere in the world. Game servers are a different thing entirely since speed is more critical than with web servers.

Regarding Google Local Search, server proximity is no longer a factor (or rather, is no longer much of a factor) for getting listed. What they use in determining whether your site is listed in local search are factors like: whether you've submitted a business listing to Google's Local Business Center (LBC), whether you are listed in other business databases, having a website optimized for local search terms (keyword and location), and etc.

[bytemaster]

Nowadays it doesn't make much difference which country your site is hosted in. The latency will negligable.

Also new underground cables are being laid, so it will be even less of an issue.

[piniella]

I have asked questions about this topic on other forums, and am almost always told that the hosting country is completely irrelevant, compared with the quality of service from your hosting company.