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Europe ... The Next Big Thing? Most industry analysts agree that Europe is truly Web hosting's "Next Big Thing". With a deluge of hosting companies and related infrastructure already firmly established in North America, all eyes have now turned to Europe, where the Web hosting industry is growing at a torrid pace. Realizing the revenue potential that now resides in Europe, most major hosting and telecommunications companies are launching aggressive European expansion campaigns.
This is good news for European hosting consumers, who now have an increasingly wide range of choices when it comes to choosing a Web host. However, it also presents a difficult choice to consumers: is it better to choose a host in burgeoning Europe, or in North America, largely believed to be the Web hosting Mecca of the world?
As one might expect, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. Here's a quick overview of issues one might choose to consider before plunking down money in either continent for a Web host:
1. Infrastructure. The fact of the matter is that most established hosting companies and telecoms have only recently awoken to the potential market in Europe. Therefore, Web hosting consumers are likely to find bigger pipes, more bandwidth and possibly even increased redundancy in North America. It's not an issue of quality, but rather an issue of quantity; North America simply has more of pretty much everything. This is demonstrated by the recent expansion of most major telecom and Web hosting companies in to Europe. While they've only recently arrived on the scene in Europe (take hosting giant Verio, for example, who recently christened a new mammoth NOC in London, England), most of them have been established in North America for years. Give North America the advantage for infrastructure.
2. Technical support. This is a huge consideration of consumers, and is every bit as important as infrastructure. If your Web site goes down, or if you need an upgrade, or simply must have an urgent question answered immediately, you better make sure there is someone you can call. If you're located in Europe but your Web site is with a North American Web hosting company, chances are that you're in a time zone that is a number of hours ahead of the one your hosting company is in. If your host doesn't offer 24-hour technical support (and many quality hosting companies still don't), you will likely only have a small window of time each day in which to obtain support. Therefore, when it comes to technical support, European consumers will likely have an easier time with European hosting companies.
3. Expenditures and pricing. Prices for hosting services are comparable in Europe and North America. However, many European consumers (British ones in particular), have the added problem of having to pay for each telephone call they make to talk to someone or even connect to the Internet. Therefore, European users might want to take a close look at hosting packages offered by major telecoms and ISPs in their area that bundle phone/dial-up packages with their accounts in order to save money.
Another important consideration is the nature of your Web site. Are you running a site that attracts a large number of European users, or is it one that is likely to attract an audience that is largely North American? Locating closer to your users can provide you with a slight advantage in terms of speed and connectivity. Mission-critical sites that rely largely on streaming media services and/or e-commerce might want to consider establishing North American and European mirror sites; this ensures your site can provide the fastest possible access to the greatest number of people (not to mention that if one mirror goes down another is still in operation).
Where you locate your Web site is ultimately your own choice. It is, however, important to factor in the various issues that pertain to Web hosting before choosing a locale. You want to make sure your Web site is trouble-free and always available once it's up and running; transferring Web hosts time and effort, two very valuable commodities in the new economy.
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Read Back Issues of WHIR Magazine
October 2009 - Web Hosting's All Star Team
This has been, for us, one of the most interesting, exciting and challenging build-ups to an issue of the magazine yet, Web Hosting's All Star Team. The balloting process was our first experiment with a kind of user participation we're planning to do a lot more with in the months to come. We had thousands of ballots submitted, with hundreds of write-in suggestions and a demonstration of user engagement that has us feeling super positive about the project.
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July 2009 - What am I Worth?
One of the interesting luxuries of working on a project like the printed WHIR magazine is that it allows us to play with things like our point of view from one issue to the next. In recent months we've been giving added attention to the kind of practical and applicable advice aimed at smaller hosts and resellers. This issue carries on with that point of view, asking, in our cover story, "what am I worth?" It's a complicated question without a clear-cut answer.
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May 2009 - The Blueprint for a Small Web Host
I was a little surprised by how difficult it became to see this idea through. We set out to assemble a blueprint for a small hosting business, but butted up pretty quickly against the general impossibility of covering all the territory that was out there to be covered. The basic constraints of a printed magazine, and the less-than-infinite amount of time we had available forced us to face the fact that we could never produce an exhaustive guide to starting a hosting company.
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