Hi,

I've been an active reader of WHT for a while but never signed up, till now! Great forum.

I'm looking to sign up for a reseller hosting account but I cant decide on datacenter location, UK or US. I'm in the UK and will be selling to a global audience (online) as well as pushing for offline sales in the UK, marketing locally.

Do end users really care about the server location? Hosting in the US seems to be cheaper than UK, easier on my pocket!

Your thoughts are appreciated.

If your going to sell to both US and UK customers I strongly suggest offering both services. I do think it will matter to both US and UK clients where your 'datacenter' is located. Best of luck to you.

It depends on what you're selling. Are you selling web hosting? If so, the location difference between the UK and the US isn't great and perhaps not noticeable. When it comes to web hosting, latency isn't a major factor at all as page loads won't be any slower for your UK customers if they were hosted in the US. However, if you're looking to host something like a game server then latency will be an issue as customers would want to look for servers as local to them as possible. It is true that hosting is cheaper in the US than in the UK.

Sorry, forgot to mention I'll be selling web hosting.

In an ideal world it would be nice to offer both UK & US DC's. But this is a new project for me and keeping the costs down is a major factor.

It really depends on where your customers are located; Europe is great for Europeans (especially for those living in the east of Europe; where often connections to the US brings to much latency, those in the west may still be happy with connections to east-coast US).

Expect a 90ms+ latency from Europe to the US in the best cases (west coast Europe to east coast USA).

But any location is as good as it is; there will be Europeans looking for US based hosting; and there will be US customers looking for European hosting. Found that pricing is not the part you should worry about when looking carefully at suppliers, but services offered can make a huge difference.

Where will you be advertising your company? how will you market the product?

It seems after reading posts on WHT that the online market for web hosting is saturated, competition is rife! This being case and to keep my costs down I will push advertsing offline to small businesses. By way of local advertising, WOM. I will also advertise online, forums like this etc.

You should go with a reseller in the U.S then get another one in the U.K like have two.

You should go with a reseller in the U.S then get another one in the U.K like have two.

Or if you are selling to the local market get a reseller in the U.K.

Wherever you anticipate the majority of your traffic will be coming from, I'd suggest getting a server there. Though a lot of people prefer US based servers.

thanks for your feedback all. I've gone US to keep the cost down for this new project. I can add the UK option at a later date if needed. Cheers

UK hosting will normally cost you more but you can also pass on the costs.
At the same time 99% of people don't mind going for cheaper USA servers...

So I would say USA, its still great for UK no problems really unless your running game servers.

Also you can always get 2 accounts, one in UK and one in USA :D

IMHO, it all depends where your users are coming from as well as which applications you are hosting.

About the hosting business being saturated, it doesn't matter. There is always going to be ways you can get your message across the right eyes, regardless if there is 10,000 other hosts out there.

IMO, not much has changed in the last year as far as saturation is concerned. Sure, there is probably more hosts out there than before, but what is another few thousand when there is already 10,000 out there?

All it depends on is getting people to see your ads - not how many other companies are out there.

If you sell them, they will buy from YOU. They won't care about what other companies are out there.

As for datacenter location, you might see more business if you offer both. Launch two brands simultaneously if you are really into it.

Or why not just start with your local market first, then when you start having some beans coming in, start offering other area specific hosting services?

Get a tiny VPS in a the UK and get your standard server in the US where most clients by default will be hosted.

Those clients which explicitly require UK based services, you can move them to the small VPS.

standard server in the US where most clients by default will be hosted.



Strange view on the world you have ;) Europe has a LOT of potential customers as well; who do not wish to host in the US, and those who found a good DC in Europe are unlikely to move to the US for their sites; because even though latency is not nearly as important as with i.e. gaming servers; it is VERY noticeable on most sites if they are hosted in Europe or the US.

The best advise is always to look at 80% your website visitor base (if your are a webhost, you should also try to understand what visitors your clients attract), and if they are from Europe; you should not even consider an US host unless your budget is just to low (although there are many European hosts which are a close match for their US counterparts).

I agree about Europe. In any case US is the heart of the INTERNET. A lot of good network providers are here. And if you chose web hosting in good DC with good network providers I'm certain you will have good connection speed around the world.

I agree about Europe. In any case US is the heart of the INTERNET. A lot of good network providers are here. And if you chose web hosting in good DC with good network providers I'm certain you will have good connection speed around the world.

While the are many great providers in the US, they are no longer the heart of the internet; the largest Internet Exchanges are all located in Europe. (Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt have the largest in the world).

No doubt this was once different but Europe is investing quite a lot in its infrastructures. And i am sure that the US works on this as well. All what i try to say is that the 'old' saying of : US has better internet; is surely not always the case and it is worth to explore other posibilities.

Europe has a LOT of potential customers as well; who do not wish to host in the US, and those who found a good DC in Europe are unlikely to move to the US for their sites; Sadly though, they don't all speak English, and if they do, not all can do with English based support. But the European market as a whole I think has more potential than the US/North American one.

Strange view on the world you have ;) Europe has a LOT of potential customers as well; who do not wish to host in the US, and those who found a good DC in Europe are unlikely to move to the US for their sites; because even though latency is not nearly as important as with i.e. gaming servers; it is VERY noticeable on most sites if they are hosted in Europe or the US.

The best advise is always to look at 80% your website visitor base (if your are a webhost, you should also try to understand what visitors your clients attract), and if they are from Europe; you should not even consider an US host unless your budget is just to low (although there are many European hosts which are a close match for their US counterparts).
That is not what I meant. We operate from the Netherlands.

My post was directed only to OP's situation. Clients not having any preference could get hosted in the US server as well as clients wanting to be hosted in the US --> default server. Those who want to be hosted in the UK explicitly could get hosted on the UK server.

If the OP has or expects large amount of clients from the UK market expecting to be hosted onshore, what is he/she doing opening a thread here about data-centre locations? It would be understood that a UK server is required.

That is not what I meant. We operate from the Netherlands.

My post was directed only to OP's situation. Clients not having any preference could get hosted in the US server as well as clients wanting to be hosted in the US --> default server. Those who want to be hosted in the UK explicitly could get hosted on the UK server.

If the OP has or expects large amount of clients from the UK market expecting to be hosted onshore, what is he/she doing opening a thread here about data-centre locations? It would be understood that a UK server is required.

I must have misunderstood you on that part; but i disagree a bit with what you said about the OP's reason to post here; the OP's question was whether or not customer would mind to have a server in the US, because according to him US based hosting would be cheaper.

In the end it does not matter; the OP choose to host in the US anyways.

thanks for your feedback all. I've gone US to keep the cost down for this new project. I can add the UK option at a later date if needed. Cheers

I know you've already made up your mind but I'll just point out a few things to you as I also went through this decision making process.

I'm a designer from the UK, but I host clients also when they need it. The choice between US and UK seemed to me at first to be about latency and a few quid in price, but I've since learnt there is more to it than that.

Google is very clever, if you host your site in the US, it will rate better in searches from the US, rather than the UK. Likewise, better for UK searches if you hosted it in the UK.

At the end of the day, the costs don't vary that much really. If you want a good quality host, you pay more, but I've got an excellent host at the moment and it only costs me £14.99 a month for reseller, it's based in a data centre down the road from me in Manchester and all works great.

But I started with a different host and moving over wasn't too bad, once you've got your feet firmly on the ground I would advise you consider the switch or as you said, a second hosting account for the UK.

All the best with it though mate, good luck :)