Hosting questions

[sally]

I am currently by a company in the US but I believe it is better for a UK only site to be hosted in the UK?

Could someone have a look at my site and make suggestions for the best type/size/type of hosting and give me some ideas of prices.

If I change hosts now what affect will that have on my site (eg downtime) and search engines (ie will they see me as a new site).

Would I be better to wait until my current year ends or just swap now, if that's what you think I need to do?

Thanks

[ken_uk]

What hosting package do you currently have?

Do you have a link to the package or specs of the package?

What sort of visitor levels are you getting?

Is your site running ok speedwise for you all the time?

What problems if any are you having with your current hosting?

Having it hosted in the US does not have to be a problem for UK serps google wise, I can get back to you more on that later if need be.

[sally]

What hosting package do you currently have?

Totalchoice hosting I have the Silver Plan

http://totalchoicehosting.com/web-hosting-plans.html

What sort of visitor levels are you getting?

At the moment very low, maximum was 70 people in a day.

Is your site running ok speedwise for you all the time?

No idea how to judge that other than as a user and being in Egypt everything is slow.

What problems if any are you having with your current hosting?

Only problem I am having is they keep threatening to shut me down when I send newsletters to all the members because I can only send 50 in 5 minutes but I don't know how to stagger them when I send them. I have sent them an email about it but no response. Other than that I am not aware of any downtime or problems.

[ken_uk]

Ok, your on shared hosting by the looks of it.

If its running ok, then you may not need to upgrade, perhaps you can get feedback om speed from a few forum members..

Im not speed testing things at the moment, but remind me on another day, when not having a drink and I can do so, but you would need a few peoples opinion on the speed (at different times) really to get a decent overview of the reality.


ps - for UK hosting serps issue - Do you use google webmaster tools sally?

If so, set the geographic preference/location to the UK, and wait a month or two at least, then it should improve the situation.

[sally]

Thanks Ken I was just told if I was a UK site I should be on uk hosting so was getting worried.

I didn't know about the geographic location thing but I just checked and it says I am already for UK.

Oooo I have never looked in the tools bit It says:

If www.country-couples.co.uk and country-couples.co.uk point to the same site, you can tell us here how you want URLs to display in our index.

Should I set that for anything specific?

[ken_uk]

Not sure on that one, I stuck mine to www as I standardise all my links with www at the start. No idea if it makes any difference setting it though, I think its more to do with how google displays the results to be honest, but its not something I have really researched...

[sally]

I better not press it then until someone tells me what it does.

[RayB]

As you are using .co.uk TLD's you won't have a problem with hosting in another country Sal

These issues only arise when using non-country specific TLD's such as .com, .org. .net etc