Why Localised Hosting is Best for Australian Businesses

With the internet opening up boundless avenues for companies worldwide, there has been an increase in the amount of hosting services available. From the past, where there was little connection to overseas companies and had to rely upon the localised hosting services available, there is now a surge in overseas hosts offering their services. Offering multiple niceties such as higher storage spaces, lower price points and other additions, some Australians have moved to having their hosting provided from outsourced companies without fully evaluating the drawbacks of this.

Over the past few years, Australian Hosting has skyrocketed and continues in its steady growth upwards. With this, there has been an increased amount of benefits for Australian companies using Australian hosts, compared to those using outsourced hosts.

Impact on Google Ranking

Whenever a website gets created, there will be an Internet Protocol, or IP address, assigned to you. This illustrates the location by with your website has been geographically created. In other words, it provides the original location source of the site. So, if you are an Australian company that has hypothetically gained your hosting services from America, the geographical location for your website will be listed as American.

This influences the way Google views your website, as even though you are an Australian user, you have an overseas IP address location. This means essentially that your webpage isn’t considered as Australian, which influences your SEO and overall google ranking within Australia.

Time Zones Aren’t an Issue

One of the biggest benefits of having your website hosted locally in Australia is that you and your host will be on the same time zone. This means that if any issues arise, you will have a technician that is available to help when you need it. For Australians that use overseas hosting, they have to consider the fact that their support technicians will be asleep during their main operating hours, which is a huge disadvantage if a problem occurs with their site and can have massive repercussions on your business.

As well as that, you own website will be configured to the time zone of your hosting provider. As your site is configured to a different time zone, it can create a confusion when looking at the analytical side of your website.

The overseas time zone can also lead to your website being completely unavailable during the day. This is because most hosting services do routine updates and maintenance overnight to avoid clashing with high traffic to the site. However, if your site is configured to an overseas time zone it could lead to your site being completely unavailable to customers as routine checks and updates will take over. Although this isn’t the largest issue because you can re-configure your website to your actual time zone, it can be easily avoided by going with local hosting.

Loading Time Variation

All webpages feed off the information that it located within their host. Therefore, any visitors that are trying to access information from your webpage will be sending an unseen message to the hosting server for that information, which will be sent back for viewing. If your information is in an overseas host, it will impact the time it takes for an Australian customer to gain the information. This extra time it takes to load information could be crucial, and lead to potential customers clicking off your site due to slow loading times. Is it really worth possibly losing customers and reputation to competitors who have chosen Australian Hosts? We don’t think so.

Unpredictable Exchange Rates

So, you’ve gone with an overseas provider at a lesser rate than what is offered locally. You are paying the outlined rate to your overseas host, which depends upon the current exchange rate for you to continue paying a lesser rate. This means that in the highly likely event that the exchange rate changes, because it always does, you could end up paying exponentially more than what you originally were and therefore more than what you would be with an Australian Host. Although this is all hypothetical, it isn’t wise putting your monetary security on the line for what could potentially be a short lived cheaper deal.

There are cheaper deals available throughout he world in every single industry, but we know that it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the better option. Local hosting providers have the major benefit on working in the same currency as you do, which means that you will not be hit hard when the exchange rate fluctuates.

Ensure your website is always prepared for success, and trust local hosting services in Australia. A one off, cheaper payment and smaller enticements may be tempting, but nothing can replace stability, security and recognition in your main country of trade. Make an educated decision that benefits you in the long term, and choose a Local Host for your website today.