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Us Servers Vs Local Servers
There is a fair amount of discussion between Australian web hosting customers about the necessity, or lack thereof, to actually have your Australian focused web site hosted on an Australian server.
We own sites hosted in Australia and sites hosted in the US (like this one) and therefore have a good amount of experience on the matter.
We answer some questions below.
Will my Australian focused site be penalised in search engines like Google for being hosted in the US?
In a nutshell, no.
Regardless of where your site is hosted, Google Webmaster Tools allows you to select which region your site's content is targeted to. It is literally as easy as choosing a country from a list.
This means that even if you have a US based host, and even a .com domain, your content can still show up perfectly fine in Australian search queries.
Search engines want to show their users relevant content, they do not discriminate based on where it is hosted if you indicate otherwise. See the official statement from Google below.
Are U.S. servers slower for Australian Users?
In theory, yes.
This is due to the increased distance and more servers through which the data request must be routed. A page loading from the US will typically take an Australian approximately 0.5 seconds longer to load than a page based in Australia, though this can vary significantly.
In reality, a quality server in the US can trump a slower server based in Australia.
It depends more on the quality of the web host than it does on the location of the server.
A large portion of Australia's bandwidth consumption comes from the US, therefore the infrastructure that connects the two continents is developed to allow fast data transmission across the long distance.
Will my support quality suffer because I have a U.S. based host?
Again, this depends more on the host than where the host is located. An Australian based host will not guarantee quality support, nor will a US based host.
What does indicate good support, is a reputable web hosting company with good customer feedback.
24/7 support is a necessary feature to look for to accommodate for time differences, but other than that, I personally have had excellent experiences with both US and Australian hosting companies.
What is the benefit of a US server then?
US based hosting solutions are usually cheaper and more generous with bandwidth and storage space than Australian options. Their base level plans tend to include more features, such as unlimited MySQL databases, and unlimited domains.
In fact, many Australian companies offer their Australian based customers US hosted options for this very reason.
Concluding Remarks
There are many excellent Australian web hosts for webmaster for whom latencies simply must be as low as possible, and price is not a major concern.
Overall, for most users the benefits of a US based host significantly outweigh the disadvantages. With companies such as JustHost receiving largely positive reviews from Australian users, and plans from as low as AUD$3.95 per month, we think that they are the superior choice.