Hosting in US or UK a major factor?

[groovyhippo]

My sites are currently hosted on a dedicated server in the US and most of my visitors originate from the US. I'm considering moving to a UK based dedicated server now. Is this likely to mean an appreciable delay in serving pages to my US visitors? Should I be concerned about this, or are the differences too negligible?

I have done traceroutes to my old (US) host and the new (UK) host from both the US and UK. Results as follows:

US -> old host = 76ms
US -> new host = 94ms
UK -> old host = 140ms
UK -> new host = 40ms

So by my reckoning, the US visitors will experience roughly a 24% increase in connection time.

[IanTurner]

I would run your tests PM - UK Time - AM US as this will probably see the heaviest traffic.

[paladin]

What you should keep in mind that every so often (about once every 2-3 weeks) there is communication problem between countries through the internet. This usually lasts for a few hours.

In short 1-2 times a month people from outside the UK (your new host location) may noy be able to get to your site for a few hours.