Where to Host
Choosing where in the world to host can be a difficult question to answer. The key-driver to most business is cost, hosting in the US is typically far cheaper than in the UK. There are however other issues that should be taken into account including support, audience, how your site is treated by search engines and data protection.
Support
If you choose to host outside of the UK, support people can be difficult and expensive to reach. You should always ensure you can reach your hosting company by phone, just in case things go wrong. more about support
Audience
If your audience is primarily in the UK, then serving your site from servers based in the UK is faster than sites being served from the US and traffic having to cross the Atlantic. Our peering arrangements with many UK ISPs mean that traffic is moved onto the ISPs network even faster than ever meaning your audience always get a fast response from your site.
Search Engines
Some search engines (Google) have UK specific searching. They determine whether sites are UK sites based on where they are physically located in the world. If you host in the US and your site is for a UK audience, you will not be returned in searches on google for UK only sites.
Data Protection
If your site collects, processes or holds information that identifies people in the UK then by law you must tell those people that you are exporting their personal information to a foreign country before they submit their information. Many companies fail to do this when hosting in other countries. more about data protection
