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You seem to get more for your money (or the same for less money, take your pick) from web hosting providers in the USA compared to UK-based outfits.

So, for a website which has a primarily British audience, can you help me fill in this list of advantages and disadvantages?

Despite the flippant tone of this post, I’m actually sort of slightly serious about seeking your advice/opinion/experience, and I will be very grateful for any light you can shed. Thanks!

Advantages of hosting in USA (for a UK-based website)
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A bit cheaper.

They probably know what they’re doing, they invented the internet and stuff.

They probably speak quite good English.

They probably also speak quite good Spanish, Russian and Chinese, which might be helpful if you are Spanish, Russian and/or Chinese.

Any others???

Disadvantages of hosting in the USA (for a UK-based website)
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Increased latency for UK users?

(I don’t really know what latency means, but I thought I’d use it because it sounds kind of cool. What I actually meant to say was, “A bit slower for UK users”.)

Server time() a pain in the @ss. Not only are they 5, 6, 7, or 8 hours behind GMT, or maybe even 9 hours (Alaskan hosting, anyone?) or maybe even 10 hours (Hawaii hosting anyone??), but they’re god-knows how many hours offset from GMT when you start wondering about differing interpretations of daylight-saving time. (I’ve never understood why webservers need to use daylight savings time. Don’t they just sit in a darkened room all the time anyway?)

It looks bad for Britain’s trade deficit.

Any others???

They didn’t invent the internet, a Brit did. But there aren’t really many differences - you may get priority as a British site in certain search engines, but on the whole, go with the company you feel best about.

I think the Brit (Tim Berners-Lee) invented the World Wide Web. I’d still credit the Yankees with inventing the Internet.

Interesting about the Search Engine point.

Let’s say we’re talking about myreallygreatwebsite.co.uk

Say I want my website to show up on Google’s “pages from the UK” search option.

If I’m hosting the website in the USA, is Google going to look at my domain name and say “OK, it’s a UK site”, or look at my the IP address of my web host and say “Oh, it’s an American site”?

Or is Google going to be really smart and determine where my site is from by looking at my content (maybe: how do I spell color/colour? Does the phone number on my contact page start +44?)?

And, on the latency point - is that a non-issue? I used to use a US host for UK sites in my previous life as an ASP developer. Their customer service was top-notch (as you’d expect from America), but sites hosted there did seem a bit slow to load. Of course that proves nothing.

I run a few danish/european sites on mediatemple (US server). I do feel that they are slower than the sites I have on european servers and it does annoy me quite a bit. However, I have tried for days to find a european alternative without success. Should I switch from mt I would choose rackspace cloud but still a us server (but for some reason i find it faster).

If you know how to set up a dedicated server using ssh I know that Germany is a good country to look into as they have function kinda like a hub for internet traffic around europe (so i’ve heard).

What about the server time issue?

I suppose we have life easy in the UK with only one time zone to deal with.

But if, like Jonas G, you host European websites in the USA, how much extra extra hassle do you find it to have, for example, your database timestamping stuff when you’re never quite sure, due to discrepancies in Daylight-Saving Time etc, what that time means in GMT / Central European Time?

I find it a little bit of a pain working with databases on servers that are not using GMT but it’s not impossible. Codeigniter has the now() function which can give you the time in GMT so I would use that to set timestamps in the db.

It might be an option for you to select a server where you can change the system timezone (i don’t know the scale of the server you’re looking for)

No hassle at all. Americans are facing that issue all within their own country, by the way. It’s been solved, believe me.

Sure, space travel has been solved, too. But it’s still a hassle.  😉

Easy as pie.

Pies. Now they are a hassle to make.

OK, I’m just being awkward here deliberately. Sorry. I take your point. I suppose I’m just saying, a pie is not quite as easy as, oh, I don’t know, say a carrot or something. And doing dates for UK users would be slightly easier on a UK server that’s already set up for UK time. But only slightly…

1. There are no “technical” issues. You configure the server to report the timezones etc. you want. Software is location agnostic out of the box (ignoring defaults).
2. The main downside of remote hosting is latency and download speed. Test this before signing up. Your potential host likely has an IP to ping and a large file to download from the data center of choice. You then have to weigh cost etc. versus performance.
3. You are in luck: Linode just this month got a data center in the UK. Same prices and plans as the US. If I did not already have long contracts with another European provider (which will remain nameless), this would be my #1 choice and will be when those contracts expire. See the same Linode blog for a recent perfromance comparison.

Host it in the Netherlands.

1. The Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) is the biggest exchange in the world.
2. Bandwidth/hosting is insanely cheap.
3. You get unmetered boxes/lines.
4. There are a bit more rational (read ‘sane’) internet ‘laws’ in the Netherlands.
5. Peering to UK is direct (i.e. there is a direct line between AMS-IX and LINX ) which means 2-3 hops max (which is very fast so latency will be at a minimum)
6. Transatlantic traffic should be avoided if not strictly necessary. (let’s say a cable breaks, TCP will find a new route halfway across the world, severely slowing down your site. It’s much easier to re-route traffic across any number of European hubs because they are closer, lines are shorter, hence re-routing takes less time).

For example, Leaseweb is pretty well known for hosting. I’m in no way affiliate with or part of them (we have our own servers in the datacenters) but use it as a price reference.

Thanks for the tip-off, @Crimp. Linode looks an interesting proposition. I guess I was thinking in terms of a shared hosting environment when I wondered about geographic software/server configuration issues. Sure, if you’re talking about a dedicated server, or VPS like Linode, then the server need never know that it’s located in Vanuatu or Timbuktu or Des Moines.

Thanks @n0xie. I hadn’t considered the issue of sane/insane internet laws. But worth considering.

Another factor which I hadn’t considered but which I suppose ought to go into the matrix is price stability. If you’re paying in your own currency then at least you know where you stand. If you’re tied into a dollar or euro hosting plan when sterling goes over the cliff it could be a bit nasty.

Hosting in the Netherlands sounds good though. Worth it just to be able to get tech support with that funky Dutch accent.

Another factor which I hadn’t considered but which I suppose ought to go into the matrix is price stability. If you’re paying in your own currency then at least you know where you stand. If you’re tied into a dollar or euro hosting plan when sterling goes over the cliff it could be a bit nasty.

Not long before you Brits see the error of your ways and adopt the Euro like any sensible European country 😉