Why host in the UK.

[dvtimes]

Why host in the UK.

I watched a great TV show today about three chaps who ran a website on nightclubs.

What they did was have volunteers go into night-clubs up and down the UK, taking shots of clubbers and then handing out business cards.

People went on the site to see themselves, and of course tell others.

This meant the site was getting a huge amount of traffic.

I never did get what the site was.

Anyway, they hosted it in London on 3 servers, which one of the lads managed. When it needed changing he did it himself.

So what is the advantage of hosting in the UK and even having your own servers that you need to look after?

[Jase]

Performance is the main advantage - average ping time to my server in the US is about 120ms, equivalent ping time to a mates in London is under 30ms. Might not seem like much but it does make a difference - down side of course is cost especially if you are using lots of BW not to mention the grey legal area which exists in the UK if the material is HC.

Benefit of doing management yourself is again cost plus you dont have to rely on someone else to do maintenance or upgrades on the box - you want to do something you do it yourself. The big downside is you have to have the skills to manage and secure a web server, which is usually under Linux, which not everyone can do.

[SGS]

Performance is the main advantage - average ping time to my server in the US is about 120ms, equivalent ping time to a mates in London is under 30ms. Might not seem like much but it does make a difference

Unless the vast majority of your subscribers are in the US that is.

[dvtimes]

well as the pics were clothed from nighclubs, i guess they had no problem with hc problems.



when he booted up i think it was a windows server



i just wish i could find the site



this was the show



-----------------------



Trouble Online 9:55am - 10:20amChannel 4VIDEO Plus+: 7259896

Subtitled

Cashing in on Clubbing



Series following the ups and downs of entrepreneurs trying to make a successful business using the internet. John, Dave and Tim run an online clubbing community with over 45,000 members. They've moved their HQ to London and pressure is now on to turn their website into a proper business.

[Jay K]

The site was

http://www.dontstayin.com

I've seen their spotters out in the clubs too.....Gatecrasher rocks :cool:

[Jase]

well as the pics were clothed from nighclubs, i guess they had no problem with hc problems.

when he booted up i think it was a windows server

i just wish i could find the site


Exactly so considering the subjects are from the UK, the material is SC and assuming most of the surfers will be from the UK then hosting in the UK makes sense but they might be suffering from rather a high bandwidth bill today as that sort of coverage will probably increase the average daily traffic ten fold. If its a pay site then as long as the boxes coped with the load and their host didnt have kittens then happy days but if its a free site then it could be problematic - a mate of mine has a non profit non adult site which was featured in one the mainstream PC magazines last year and his visitors went from an average of 500 uniques a day to over 4000 overnight causing his server to fall over and his host to suspend his account due to exceeding allowed bandwidth limits.

Windows servers have their own challenges - in theory they are easier to manage than a Linux box as its all GUI based but they are inherently slower and less secure so its swings and roundabouts. There are also licencing costs on Windows which dont apply on Linux - at the end of the day it comes down to personal preference and if I had the skills to manage my own box I would but I dont hence paying someone else to do it (quite badly sometimes!!)

[dvtimes]

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[Fluffy Wee Cunt]

The concept is neither new nor original, tons of event related sites offer coverage like that, many use their members to provide the content. By taking your cam to the event and taking pics you earn your free entry ticket. By joining as a member you often get a free email acount with them, so you promote them with every mail you send. Teens are obviously eager to have one of those cool mail addresses.

And people happily fall for that, it seems.

[karl]

Its a great site
The site was

http://www.dontstayin.com

I've seen their spotters out in the clubs too.....Gatecrasher rocks :cool:

[Damian]

It also is thought to be useful for SEO to have a server in the country of your TLD.

[matt]

It also is thought to be useful for SEO to have a server in the country of your TLD.

I've heard that before also, though personally I think having a .co.uk is enough. I've never had a chance to host a .com on a UK server to test it out though.

I'd rather host my more important sites in the UK as it's much easier to contact them in the event of somthing going wrong. I also think the gap in costs is starting to narrow as time goes on.