I checked out invisionhost.com, which someone just raved about on here. And I noticed they're from overseas (I'm in the US and they're in Australia). They sound real good, but is there a downside to using a webhost that's not in your country? I'm looking for a good host for my business website that allows for plenty visitors to my site, at least one email address, good customer support, not expensive, and I'm not sure what else I need. I'm new to the world of having my own website, yet I need one asap.

Can you please explain what could be the problem with a host which is not located in your countrly? I think most of the hosts where ever they are located have their servers in USA.

:*moon*:

only one i can think of is time zone difference... i don't know how off the time is for australia, but it could delay email response times, etc.

As I said, I'm new to having my own website, and a business one at that, so I don't KNOW if there's a problem with a host not located in my country. That's why I'm asking! Does anyone else possibly have any related experience?

oh sorry! I am hosted with a host located in Australia, but it has its servers in USA powered by RackSpace.

Hrmm...

Yes, as a webhost from Australia, I think the biggest issue is reponse times due to time difference.

How do you solve this?
Hire staff from the USA :)

ICD Soft has similar structure..Their support is in Europe and Data Center in Hong Kong

faculty is 100% correct thats how we solved our problem with email response times too. :)

Elena

Originally posted by ForumsAddict
Can you please explain what could be the problem with a host which is not located in your countrly? I think most of the hosts where ever they are located have their servers in USA.

Hello,

Well said.... We are not located in States as well. However our data centers are located there. And please note that 97% of our clients are from United States, and they are much happier with the time responses to their inquiries compare to the hosts based in states, offering tool free numbers. We do have phone support as well, however it would be quite expensive for a valued client to call us all the way from States. But our aim is to provide our clients with superior customer service.


And Im sure there are far too many good and respectable web hosting providers overseas which are excellent in their services. In Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong & etc..

It was suggested to me that perhaps there could be law variances that might possibly conflict for whatever reason. Also, that the speed would likely be an issue because of the relativity. Any comments on that?

Originally posted by moonchild
It was suggested to me that perhaps there could be law variances that might possibly conflict for whatever reason. Also, that the speed would likely be an issue because of the relativity. Any comments on that?

Hello,

As I mentioned, most of the hosting providers, are having their server located at state-of-art data centers in state with multiple connections to the major backbones.

So speed is not a matter if they have their servers in States.

I firmly believe that it is better to have a host in your own country, not just one with servers there.

1. Phone - what if you needed to call them? Overseas calls are expensive.

2. What if they scammed you, cost you business, or injured you in another way; and you wanted to sue them? Hard to do to an overseas company with different laws

Hrmm..

There are international laws about this.. and most banks have the same kind of rules and regulations.

If there was ever a problem, a simple credit card chargeback would be enough.

So I really dont see the problem :)

international law? Torts are not the same from country to country.

To sue your (former) provider might be much easier and rewarding in the US, due to the law settings. For the same reason it might be harder to get your right without going to court.

But let's stay realistic and think of the time before going to court, which after all is the normal case. Then you might be better off with a company based in Europe, because they have much stricter customer protection and privacy laws in the EU. And if these guys use US-based servers and offer decent customer support, it should be a good fit.

Well, I've never sued a host and hope it never comes to that. The main reason for me is phone number. It may not be important to you; but a phone number also helps you check out a host a bit further than just doing a whois.

It's already been mentioned, but the only thing I don't like about hosting overseas is the time difference. I live on east coast USA and my site is hosted in the UK, so there is a several hour time difference.

So unless if you're time zone is mission critical I wouldn't make it a deciding factor whether or not to choose or not choose a specific host.

Just my $0.02

<edit>
I jsut noticed I'm 100 away from a custom title :)
</edit>

What does the time difference have to do with anything? I mean, if it's 1pm here and it's 8am the next day there (or whatever), how will this matter?

Many countries have strict laws about customer protection policies and what not. If you were to host with someone overseas, you would have to think "Are they reputable?", "Does their government like to charge the pants of them if they do something wrong?", etc. I know in Australia, our government is money hungry.. so (IMO), we try to do the right thing as to not loose our business :)

Mmm?