A big percentage of web hosts are located in the USA. Do a search for web hosting providers, and I can almost guarantee most of those you come across are US based. You would also come across a large amount of web hosts, around the globe that are using US managed dedicated server hosting, and so end up with your website hosted in the US. Why as a UK company should you host your website from within the UK and what are the benefits associated?
Receive bills in easy to handle UK pounds
The first reason is that by using UK business class web hosting, you are most likely to be billed in UK pounds. As a business being billed in pounds will make for easier accounting. There is also the hassle involved if you pay in $ for example, of not knowing your exactly monthly bills due to the currency conversions constantly fluctuating. For example the first month your bill might be 200 pounds, but the following month you get a bill for 215 due to a large change in the value of the to $. So by getting billed in pounds allows you to know the exact out goings.
Support hours
While a lot of hosting companies will provide 24/7 support as standard, you may find the best staff are working during local hours. When you are out of hours, you may find the most technically competent staff are on call. Very often networking staff are on call, so any issues out of hours will experience a time delay as they are contacted. If you are a UK based business, you can enjoy dealing with a UK web hosting company during business hours. Thus if you submit a support ticket during these working hours, you should have a response from the best staff during your working hours.
Load time and ping
The ping time is the distance between the server and client. If you get your hosting from the US but your main customers are based within the UK then their websites will be slower to load because of the large distance. By hosting your site in the UK you will get a much better speed and the connection with be reliable as the distance is considerably shorter. This is important if you host applications that need fast response times. By getting your hosting locally ensures the smooth running of these applications without delays because of big distances in hosting.
Internet searches
Searches on Google for just the UK will always show domains with a .co.uk, which are hosted in the UK. With this, you can have a big impact on search engine results. For SEO purposes it is best to use a .com domain. To get into the UK rankings you must be based from within the UK as Google will determine this. Hosting in the US will mean your website won’t show in local searches. Therefore by choosing a hosting company based in the UK, you will always make sure you get the best results for rankings, as well performance and reliability of your website.
When thinking of where to host your web site, you could possibly KDA Web Services, a managed hosting company.