When you’re choosing a server, the location is one of the options that comprise your final choice. You shouldn’t neglect it as the location matters and it can have a great positive effect on your website if chosen wisely. So, let’s see how this all works and how to choose the best locations for your VPS in 2022.

Why does location matter?

As you might know, the internet works based on a network of interconnected hardware units – servers. Each server is housed at some place, a special facility that is located someplace in the world – a data center. Where is the data center, what kind of country this is, and how good this data center is – all these factors contribute to the eventual efficiency of your hosting solution and hence your website. As for the physical location, it has its own effect on the efficiency of hosting. In a nutshell, the closer it’s to your target audience, the better, as you get the lowest rates of latency together with improved SEO rankings. Let’s have a closer look at what the server location affects.

What things are affected by the location of your VPS?

First of all, the location determines the proximity to the people willing to access your web resource. This distance affects the latency, hence the page loading speed and hence the comfortable experience of your users. The differences in speed may yet be not so significant across the globe, but sometimes even small fractions of time matter.

Especially significant they become if we take search engine optimization into account. When ranking pages for the search results, the search engines consider a whole range of factors, one of which is eventually the page loading speed. The more optimized for comfortable user experience this or that page is, the higher it is ranked by the search engines, even if the average user doesn’t pay as much attention to these small differences when browsing.

Moreover, search engines also try to adapt the search results they give to a particular user to his or her physical location – to provide them with goods and services more relevant on their territory.

Another point is the legislation. Different countries have different laws, regulating various activities in different ways. Some are more open to certain activities while more closed to others. For example, if you are willing to host adult content, it’s a good idea to do it on a VPS in the Netherlands, because they have very free regulations about it, and not a too good idea to do it on a VPS in Ukraine because adult content there is by far illegal.

If you are interested in creating a torrent tracker, VPS in Sweden will be a good choice, as they have a pretty liberal policy in this regard – just think about the Pirate Bay, probably the most famous torrent tracker and you’ll get what we mean.

If you want to be free from certain regulations that are valid in the European Union, but still want Europe to be your target audience, then go for the United Kingdom VPS, since Brexit has made it independent from much of the EU legislation. If this particular option is what you need, we recommend going and checking out the offer here.

These are just a few examples to give you an idea. Basically, to choose the proper location, you have to make study, which country is best for the services you are going to offer.

The last but not the least point is the choice of the data center. The data center is a best building where the physical hardware providing the operation of your web projects is stored. Whether these pieces of physical hardware are stored in good or bad conditions, affects greatly the security of your data, your uptime, and the performance of your website. Let’s have a closer look at a few factors to take into account when looking for a data center.

How to choose a data center?

The first thing you have to keep in mind is the security of the data center in question. Before choosing a VPS in a data center offered by a hosting provider, make sure to study which security conditions it offers, so as to avoid risks of data breaches, data losses, and data theft. Check, whether it has sufficient conditions to keep the hardware safe from natural disasters like floods or fires. Make sure that no unauthorized staff is permitted to enter the rooms and that sufficient measures are met to prevent unauthorized intrusion.

Uptime and redundancies

Uninterrupted operation of the website is an essential requirement for web hosting. Make sure that the data center guarantees 99,99% uptime and sufficient conditions for it to be true – uninterrupted power supplies, sources of backup power supply, like extra generators, solar power generators, etc.

The quality of the hardware

Make sure to check that the hardware available in the data center is up-to-date and in condition to provide you with the maximum level of performance. For example, choose the data center that offers servers on SSD drives rather than HDD, as SSD are more modern, fast, and reliable technology.

Also, try to look for a data center at which numerous hosting providers offer their services. In this case, it will be easier for you to switch between them if you find a better plan to fit the needs of your project. Such a developed infrastructure allows for network redundancy, which means a more stable, reliable, and fault-tolerant network.

Conclusion

As you have seen, there are many factors that the location affects, but we hope that this article has made them clear to you and now you will certainly find the proper location for your VPS.