Web Hosting Overseas or Local Web Hosting

When I am going to host my website, where would be the best location of the web hosting company that I should get? I know that many people are using web hosting companies that are located from different location. But what are the advantages of using local web hosting companies?

hosting local helps with search engine local listings. it's best to host local to your target audience.

Originally Posted by cableguy hosting local helps with search engine local listings. it's best to host local to your target audience.

This is true but only if your website is aimed at the local market. For example if you are from the UK but you’re targeting those in the US you can always buy US based hosting and then change tell Google that you are targeting those in the US via Google’s webmaster tools.

Jack

Originally Posted by freeme When I am going to host my website, where would be the best location of the web hosting company that I should get? I know that many people are using web hosting companies that are located from different location. But what are the advantages of using local web hosting companies?

The first advantage should be improved latency. By hosting with local companies, you're also helping your own community grow and prosper. As was said earlier, if your target audience is not local, certainly hosting where your target audience resides should help. Why? Google ranks sites by local relevance. The same keyword will produce different localized Google SERPS - based on the IP address of the searcher.

I look at this stuff through a support point of view.

I have personally gone with a local based company, with an overseas based server. Yes technical support gonna be harder, but I think billing and other stuff is more important when a lot of money goes into hosting.

Would taxes be applied differently if your hosting company resides overseas? Or would you still pay taxes based on your physical location?

It depends on your satisfaction. All of them should be have the same common approach as far as customer satisfaction is concerned.

I've always found the big nationals to be just as fast as the locals, if not more so. Especially if you consider most customers/visitors (where i live, in central US) are from elsewhere.

I host local, with an offshore backup server in the UK. Most of my target audience is US, and in effort to obtain a rapid loading site I chose to go with softlayer Datacenter in the US.

For the majority of people it doesn't matter tbh... However I would try to get it hosted closest to your target audience.

Therefore if your main source of traffic is from the US, you should get hosting in the US...