How important is the location of a Web host with the target crowd?

Portal Home > Knowledgebase > Articles Database > How important is the location of a Web host with the target crowd?

Posted by thnok, 04-11-2017, 03:06 AM
Currently I'm running a site which is local (Sri Lanka, country in Asia) and gets about 500-1000 hits per day on average. 1. At the moment it is hosted on a US web host. I want to know how important is it the location of the server? (technically it will reduce the ping time) but how is it in practice? 2. If location is the case. How are the hosts which provides services in India? Trustable? If so any hosts which would be best suited for this case?
Posted by net, 04-11-2017, 03:12 AM
It is important when it comes to speed but you can always use cloudflare.... If budget is your concern, you can go for west coast location that is good for Asia location.
Posted by thnok, 04-11-2017, 03:20 AM
I'm currently using cloudflare, so I guess the the speed is covered by it. Completely forgot. Budget is a concern, trying to find a host for about $40-$50 per year.
Posted by MechanicWeb-shoss, 04-11-2017, 03:44 AM
Location of the server was important for a website in the past. But now, if you are on a decent server, the difference in speed is not noticeable for the human eye. If you were hosting an ERP, or a software for the accounts department of a company, I would suggest going with a local server. But if you are hosting a website, and the server performance is decent, is not overloaded, server location will not impact the website's page load time, speed or SEO, unless the server is too far away. Bad apples are everywhere. You might find them in India, too. At the same time, you might also find some decent providers there. Don't choose your provider depending on their origin. Customer service is everything in this business. So, go with a provider that emphasizes on service.
Posted by DewlanceHosting, 04-11-2017, 05:43 AM
I used Indian hosting company and as per my experience you will be not even able to get 99% uptime guarantee. I was hosted my site on a reputable Indian provider and my site was guaranteed down for few hours each month, So I will suggest you to look for hosting in European country, HK, Russia or nearby your country or even better If you will chose Srilankan hosting provider who have a server in SL. Also note that some providers can be from your country but check their server location before purchase because of Its possible that they are from Srilanka but their server located in US.
Posted by Host4Geeks-Kushal, 04-11-2017, 05:56 AM
Hearing that from a provider is quite shocking, just because you have a bad experience with a single host you used does not mean that it is the same with every provider. The infrastructure and operating costs are indeed higher in India but the service quality and operations are in no way unreliable. There are some state of the art datacenters at par if not better than our US and UK counterparts. I did happen to visit multiple facilities in India prior to our Indian expansion, in search for a provider to work with and I was never left unimpressed by the facilities. Keep in mind that AWS, Azure and Softlayer all have their clouds in India operated out of Indian datacenters. @thnok finding a good host anywhere should not be a problem, you just need to look carefully and speak to provider before deciding on one. As for the location, with broadband and internet speeds rising globally the differences are minimal but they do exist specially if you have a heavy or a media rich website, staying close to your target audience helps.
Posted by DewlanceHosting, 04-11-2017, 08:07 AM
I not only use single hosting company, I used many company and even most of person who know me mention similar experience with them. 2 week ago, One of person contact me and describe similar situation to me and ask me that now what he need to do. (I have a blog in my native language so many people call me or ask me on this type of situation like Provider did not reply them from 3 to 4 days, provider did not provide refund even If they have 30 day refund guarantee, etc). I am from India, You can imagine that I must use various Indian company in past and this is the reason why I want to stay away from Indian company. I was big supporter of Indian company but learn this from my experience and even I was banned in one of Indian forum for fighting with Admin that Indian company are good and we should support Indian hosting company but later admin banned me, On that time I was not use any Indian hosting company. Last edited by DewlanceHosting; 04-11-2017 at 08:14 AM.
Posted by Host4Geeks-Kushal, 04-11-2017, 08:11 AM
You probably then used the worst ones.
Posted by DewlanceHosting, 04-11-2017, 08:35 AM
Well, I used top Indian hosting company which is still listed on #1 google result for very popular keyword and of-course they have lot of positive review and some negative review. Topic of this thread will be diverted to different topic so I will not post any other reply. Sorry.
Posted by Host4Geeks-Kushal, 04-11-2017, 08:38 AM
If search engine rankings validated the quality of a provider, EIG's brands would be the best ones out there.
Posted by DheerajKumar, 04-11-2017, 08:42 AM
Yes, location is important for the web host for targeting a specific crowd but this is not a major factor.
Posted by kamranssuet, 04-11-2017, 08:43 AM
Hi, It is very important, you should know the location of your hosting server before making hosting decision. You can ask hosting providing hosting server ip address, you can ping the ip from your location, you will find the difference. Even for the AWS region, you can easily find the best suited region for your area. Good hosting companies test the latency before finalizing hosting server by default but some of them don't care location, its better to explicitly ask your hosting provider for the latency test. Regards, Kami
Posted by kamranssuet, 04-11-2017, 08:47 AM
Hi, You can check latency for AWS region and for others countries by visiting the following URL. http://www.cloudping.info/ https://cloudharmony.com/speedtest-for-aws http://maplatency.com/ Regards, Kami
Posted by frankmeacey, 04-11-2017, 12:42 PM
Hi, Like most of the responses here have stated. Location primarily influences the speed at which your website is delivered to your target. If your server location is some distance from your target audience, then pings between your website's users and your server will be slow, and consequently your website will resolve slowly. However, if you host the website on a server closer to your audience, then the pings will be much quicker and as a result - faster loading times of your site. However, technology has made some great advancements and by using a decent CDN, such as CloudFlare, you can ensure your website loads at good speeds. Therefore making server location less influential. I hope this response helps!
Posted by thnok, 04-11-2017, 11:07 PM
Judging by the comments, I would take it as a sign to stay away from hosting at India. And just stick with Cloudflare. Thanks for the help guys. I want to get the quotes from host providers, is there a way to post it and get it done? I noticed Find a host isn't working now.
Posted by MechanicWeb-shoss, 04-12-2017, 11:49 AM
Providers are not allowed to do that. If you find some, you may want to avoid them as they are violating the rules.
Posted by MHostR, 04-12-2017, 02:58 PM
Location is important for response time and page loading speed. Cloudflare cache JS,CSS & Image files and serve it from closest location, this is good but that's not everything. If there is any chance to host your site on a server close to your location, you should notice the difference.
Posted by SenseiSteve, 04-12-2017, 03:53 PM
Actually, since providers aren't allowed to self advertise, your best bet will be to review existing offers on the marketplace forum, narrow your choice down to the ones you find most appealing, call or contact each of them directly and take it from there.