Choosing a server location?

Mujkanovic · May 12, 2016

I am wondering how important a server location is. I have seen some people say that in this day and age it shouldn't make a difference, but others say I should use one close to me or my readers. I haven't even set up my website projects yet but I want to be sure I start off on the right direction and solve future problems.

Should I choose server location base on my audience or something else?

I appreciate all your help and your opinions.

Thanks,

FerdieQO · Oct 1, 2016

If you are targeting audience in USA then you should choose server location in USA such as Dallas, New York.
If you are targeting audience in UK then you should buy servers there, it will boost website speed when visitors there visit your site.
Other than that, I don't see any benefits with server location but some SEO people said that we should choose server close to where visitors will come.

GswHosting · Oct 1, 2016

Server location isn't important for SEO, but if you want your readers have quickest as is possible access to your website you have to put on server nearest to your audience.
But even if you have server on other continent that doesn't mean that you readers will leave or rarely visit your page. There is one trick in visitors mind that you can use too and that is to register domain with country code like .de, .eu, .uk etc.
So if you target all English language audience then server location isn't matter.
But if you target Balkan audience you will probably choose server in Bulgaria, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Serbia etc.

LJSHost · Oct 1, 2016

Not much add to the current comments, all the information you need to make your choice is here.
I would go with a provider in the general region as my target audience for latency mostly.

StackNetwork · Oct 10, 2016

You always need to choose server location based on your targeted audience location. So yes, nothing much to add with existing comments. Thanks.

michal_novacek · Oct 11, 2016

Nobody identified why it is important to choose right location for your business. It is because of a latency to your end-users. Every provider should have tool "Looking glass" or "Speed test files" where you can test the mentioned latency.

Looking glass is the tool that you ping (trying to reach with network connection) your desired datacenter. You will get a results of numbers. I would say that there is no "the best latency" (because it is always compromise between price and location). Eg. you can have a server in Asia (assuming that your customer are from this region) for $4400 / month. Compare to US location of DC in Los Angeles you would pay around $400 for same plan with worst latencies but with same service.

Another "tool" is test files, you just download a test file from provider and you can compare among DCs which one is the slowest and which one is the best.

You are able to test these tools @ https://10Gbps.io/looking-glass & https://10gbps.io/datacenters#speedtest

ventureer · Oct 14, 2016

Just choose the location closer to your users. If your users are mostly from USA, order a server in USA. If you have users worldwide, just choose a location the closer possible to the places your users come most.
If the majority of your users are from USA and Europe, you can order the server in New York, Ireland, UK, France, ...

Optimidia · Oct 15, 2016

We do definitely use locations that we find best for our targeted audience. Right now we are mostly central US and looking to expand into the coasts and maybe Europe.

dewspedjdxm · Oct 15, 2016

For webhosting servers located anywhere in the world works great though for other kind of services like minecraft servers you need DDOS protection and servers close to the location of players.

compacta · Oct 27, 2016

If you want to host a website I recommend choosing a location with lower ping to have a better response time to your readers. You can use dns servers in different locations to have more redundancy or use cloudflare for this function in addition to redundancy also protects your website. If you use for other purposes the location does not have much importance.

MilesWeb · Nov 21, 2016

Server location doesn't make any difference as your SEO is concern. But you need to select very carefully, the right web host provider. Because downtime for web may cause your business.

itnewsweek · Dec 21, 2016

Server location is not important. If you configure your web site correctly, Your site will work good and quick from different locations.

Hannan · Dec 22, 2016

If you are using as putting a website up then you have to know where your main audience comes from. For example if they are from Europe then it is better to get a server close by. Or if you are using for your own projects or company's data then your local country would be the best. For latency and speed etc...

GoFreeHosting · Dec 23, 2016

You should choose the server close to your readers.It is best for you.Even though these days there is a service called CDN like cloudflare which may help you.But still go for hosting server with is close to your readers.

Skylarkhosting · Dec 25, 2016

Location isn't important these days. With CDN on boom, it's easy to have fast loading sites anywhere in the world now.

DefaultUser · Jan 28, 2017

GoFreeHosting said:
You should choose the server close to your readers.It is best for you.Even though these days there is a service called CDN like cloudflare which may help you.But still go for hosting server with is close to your readers.

If you use a CDN like cloudflare then do you still need to get your hosting servers close to your readers? Isn't that what a CDN is for?

Hannan said:
If you are using as putting a website up then you have to know where your main audience comes from. For example if they are from Europe then it is better to get a server close by. Or if you are using for your own projects or company's data then your local country would be the best. For latency and speed etc...

Don't CDN services like cloudflare solve the location problems and issues though?

eva2000 · Jan 28, 2017

I am obsessed with page load speed so location is important for the intended visitor audience of the web site

One of my Centmin Mod LEMP stack users recently switched to Cloudflare business plan to use Railgun with very nice improvements

For most of my sites there's a healthy portion of Asian and Europe visitors with mainly USA visitors. So I usually choose US West location for backend/origins as it's right in the middle of Asian and Europe as well

For my main centmin mod web site it's on a Amazon AWS Route53 geo latency dns based cluser of vps servers based in London, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, New Jersey, New York, Washington DC, Singapore.

HostXNow · Jan 30, 2017

Choosing the best network/hardware is more important, everything else such as CDN/software won't make a huge difference, IMO.

StackArcVPS · Apr 11, 2017

Depending on your target audience your server location may differ. i would suggest to choose a server location the most nearest to your site's target audience to give a latency free experience and get better ranking on google

BlueLeaf · Apr 15, 2017

Absolutely! Your server location is important for how quickly your website opens for users. If you have a local business and website and you don't sell internationally, then your website will open quicker if you host your website in your country or state. If you sell internationally and you host your website, let's say in USA, then your website will open quicker for customers in USA, and it will open slower for customers in Europe, Asia, Australia, South America. I've been working with many companies who sell internationally, and I've seen this with my own eyes.

As other users pointed a CDN solution would solve this problem for your. Implementing a CDN solution will make your website work fast on all continents and in most countries.

CloudFlare is definitely a good option for that. There are many other options as good as that. Anyway, we implemented this particular one recently and we've been using it for a few months and we love it. They have a free plan which works great for any type of websites. You don't necessarily have to pay them, so as their free plan will do a great job for you. You will also get a super good caching options with them, and protection against DDOS attacks, all included in the same free price.

Choosing a server location?

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