Do you prefer working with Irish businesses or those further afield? In most cases, it comes down to a common sense decision once all the options have been weighed up. Perhaps we don’t do that quite as stringently when choosing a web hosting provider as in some other purchasing decisions. In this article we will explain some of the advantages of hosting a website in Ireland over the rest of the world.
Posted on 12 February 2016 - Hosting
BY Tibus
When choosing a web host for an Irish website - whether that’s a .ie domain or just a site that attracts or is targeted at a predominantly Irish audience - it is beneficial from a site performance perspective to have a server that is based in Ireland.
Talk of the cloud and wireless internet is a bit of a misnomer. At its most fundamental level, the internet still relies on data travelling from your server and along wires to the device of the person accessing your website.
In terms of page load speed and other website performance metrics, the shorter the distance travelled by the date the better the user experience will be. As such, if you’re targeting Irish people, it makes sense to host the website in Ireland.
By the same taken, it would be more beneficial to host in the UK than Australia or the USA.
The location of your server has a direct impact on your website’s performance on Google. If your server’s IP address shows it is based in Ireland, you are more likely to rank highly on google.ie than google.it or google.de.
When you host your website on a server based in the Republic of Ireland, it is governed by the Irish government’s Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003. In Northern Ireland, it is subject to the UK government’s Data Protection Act 1998.
While the sovereignty of data stored by US companies in the Republic of Ireland is currently being tested in the American courts, the ruling will at least clarify whether businesses need to choose local web hosts in order to have their data governed by local data protection laws.
Ireland might not be renowned for its good weather. But despite taking a bit of a battering from the Atlantic at times, we actually get off quite lightly compared to extreme weather in other parts of the world.
The physical hardware and wires mentioned above - and the power supplies that serve them - are vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and other natural disasters. In that regard, Ireland actually has excellent web hosting weather!
Discover more about your web hosting options.
Read more