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Contact UsAccording to a recent study by NetCallidus (London, UK), a search engine optimisation firm, a number of UK government websites are hosted on US servers which is a slap in the face to UK businesses.
Job Centre Plus (jobcentreplus.gov.uk) and the Pension Service (thepensionservice.gov.uk) are two of the websites hosted in USA.
Mark Furber, managing director of NetCallidus said:
At a time when the UK economy is teetering on the edge of a recession, this is an out and out insult. There is no good reason why this work should be given to another country. It might save a few pounds, but sends the wrong message about how much the government cares about British business.
He believe this is socially irresponsible and that the work would be better done by a UK business anyway.
From search engine point of view he said we always advise our clients to host their websites in the country they are aiming at, as it is one of the factors that can influence search engines like Google.
Plus hosting website in another coutry can cause latency, security and management issues for the local people at which it is aimed at.
Originally written by Ian Williams of VNUNET.
1 response so far
1 zube__ ~ Jun 12, 2008 at 4:42 am
This article is full of half truths. 1. The reason that most hosting is done on US Servers is because they are a lot cheaper. This is not a matter of a “few pounds” as a robust hosting environment is thousands of pounds more expensive in the UK. UK hosting companies need to be a lot more competitive and should look to their pricing structure if they want the business. 2. Having run many tests on Google search, I have never seen a preference given based on where a site is hosted and consider this comment untrue. There may be domain related preferences but this is entirely independent of the physical hosting locale. 3. The latency issue is nonsensical as the chief issues that affect response are: a) speed of servers with the US being more cost-effective for faster ones b) speed of client machine/connection which is independent of hosting. The routing network itself contributes negligibly to latency and is easily compensated for by the other factors. 4. As for security and management, this is a function of application development and hosting environment. It has nothing to do with hosting location. Again, additional hosting features, 24 hours support, etc. are simply less expensive in the US.
It should be worth noting that the site developers are often the ones who advise over the hosting environment and if they are suggesting the use of US based servers, there is clearly a competitive reason for doing so.
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