Question on Web-server location

flashcash5

Hi all,

If a site is to be visited mainly by people in Ireland and the server is based in lets say, atlanta for example, how will this affect most users in terms of the different connection speeds?

Are there any other issues that arise with this?

What are the alternatives? A server in Ireland? Is there much point if you have a good setup elsewhere?

Thx




O yea sry Ph3n0m All in good taste

seamus

There's an off-chance that users on higher bandwidth connections may notice slower speeds, particularly if you're offering stuff for download, but if the host has a fat pipe to the Internet, any difference would be minimal.

Pings and latency may be larger for servers outside the country, which makes them less favourable for gaming servers - though this isn't always the case. Given the size of our country and the Internet providers in it, some people can have bigger pings to a server that's 2 miles away than a server thats 1000 miles away.

Much of NTL's broadband traffic for example is routed through the UK.

flashcash5

Cheers seamus,

Thought so yea, was just wondering if there was some cons that i was unaware of.

Any more suggestions, feel free to oblige

steve-hosting36

Having the server in Ireland brings a few benefits,

1 - google knows your sites are Irish and they come up in the 'pages from Ireland' search
2 - latency is significantly better for irish users, so great for games, voip and even faster for general browsing and server responses (ssh, rdp, etc)
3 - local time zone support and the ability to go 'round the provider with a stick in case of problems
4 - no currency conversion fluctuations to worry about

Plus, Irish servers are now as cost-effective if not cheaper than their UK or US counterparts.

5 - support Irish tech jobs

HTH, Stephen

flashcash5

Interseting, cheers for that

Is there some way of sumbiting your site to show up as an 'irish site'' in google if your web server is elsewhere?
What is ssh by the way, my brain must be temporarily down.
'rdp' - i presme you're talking about remote desktop? My setup is just a secure server for running html and a few php transaction based scripts.
currency conversion fluctuations .. Can you specify a bit?

steve-hosting36

On google - no, it indexes based on domain name and IP geographical location.

SSH is secure shell, used for accessing unix boxes.

RDP is remote desktop (typically windows)

Well, if you are paying for the server in sterling or dollars, you wont be paying the same amount every month, which can make budgeting more complex.

thedesigntribe

steve-hosting36 wrote:

Having the server in Ireland brings a few benefits,
1 - google knows your sites are Irish and they come up in the 'pages from Ireland' search
5 - support Irish tech jobs

No.1 is a biggey - looking for good ranking for Irish based geographical search queries? you not helping yourself if your site is located in seattle!

I also think No.5 is important - we all have brothers, cousins, sisters, aunts & friends in the tech industry in Ireland.

mneylon

Number 5 cannot be stressed enough, unfortunately there are still quite a few "Irish" hosting companies that are using servers in the US.

steve-hosting36

Or outsourcing significant functions to foreign parts. BK and ourselves are two of the hosts working hard to support the local industry and local employment in this area

mneylon

Eek!
We agreed on something!