robzilla
msg:4463897 | 1:08 pm on Jun 11, 2012 (gmt 0) |
Azure's EU servers are in Dublin (North Europe) and Amsterdam (West Europe). As for your rankings, it should not make a difference whether you host your site in Ireland or the UK, I just wouldn't recommend hosting it in the US if your audience is mostly from the UK. Latency-wise, UK-based hosting would still be your best bet, but the difference with Ireland is tiny. I'm sure Google understands that sometimes it's better, easier or cheaper to host in a neighboring country.
If the UK if your target audience, try to make sure you have plenty of other signals that point this out.
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petehall
msg:4464116 | 8:43 pm on Jun 11, 2012 (gmt 0) |
Thank you robzilla. I am still having second thoughts about this.
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robzilla
msg:4464146 | 9:45 pm on Jun 11, 2012 (gmt 0) |
What are the main reasons you're looking at Azure and AWS as alternatives to your UK-housed web server?
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petehall
msg:4464323 | 10:44 am on Jun 12, 2012 (gmt 0) |
The company I use to house my server has been bought out and the service level has dropped significantly from a very efficient, personalised service. Now I'm just a number.
So I may as well be with a larger company such as Amazon and reduce my costs.
To give you an idea I'm currently paying £200 per month for 300GB data transfer and this is around £18 with Azure.
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petehall
msg:4464324 | 10:45 am on Jun 12, 2012 (gmt 0) |
That and I am looking to go virtual anyway as I do not wish to pay for infrastructure costs e.g. a new server once it's out of warranty (around 12 months time).
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robzilla
msg:4464328 | 11:32 am on Jun 12, 2012 (gmt 0) |
That's crazy. Compare that to a VPS at Linode: the 768, for example, which includes 300 GB of data transfer, costs less than 20 pounds/month, and you still get (absolutely stellar) support, and they have a datacenter in London. Not sure what specs you need, but it's worth having a look (if you haven't already).
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petehall
msg:4464333 | 12:13 pm on Jun 12, 2012 (gmt 0) |
Thanks robzilla I will have a look!
Edit: I'm Windows Server based not Linux, so I don't think this will be of any use to me.
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petehall
msg:4471762 | 2:39 pm on Jul 2, 2012 (gmt 0) |
Has anyone set-up Azure North Europe with a UK ranking site yet? I created a VS at the weekend.... ok, I suppose I'll have to be the guinea pig!
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