23 Feb SEO Friendly Irish Hosting
Hosting is something that is rarely considered when a client is thinking about SEO. Personally I look at hosting as the foundation of any site, with the following features in mind;
- Speed
- Security
- Up Time
- Control Panel
- Who are your neighbors
Speed
Speed is a Search Engine Ranking Factor and something that should always be considered. If you are not hosting with an Irish company and the majority of your business is Irish, your site is going to be slow, or at least slower than it would be if the same service was hosted in Ireland. Speed can be influenced by a number of factors but the one you can not control is your host, I see it as the foundation of any web site or service.
>> Check Your Site’s Current Speed
Security
This is not something that only big banks need to be concerned about, many Reputable Irish Hosts get hacked on a very regular basis, they are only obliged to report when there is a breach in data security, your server my be victim to DDoS on a regular basis and this is more than likely affecting you site’s security and again its speed.
Up Time
This is not easily measured as you can’t sit at your website 24/7 checking if it is live or down. A good host will offer a reliable accountable log of downtime and more importantly will relocated your site within their data center if there is an issue at their end.
>> Check if your site is really down or if it is just you
Control Panel
Many Irish hosts have their own bespoke control panels, which they have built to negate having to pay license fees to companies who offer this service. cPanel and Plesk are two that I would recommend and if your host does not offer them, chances are you will be working with very restricted access to the under the hood components of your website.
Your Neighbors
This is is a factor of both IP and Virtual Shared Servers or other similar hosting setups. The cheaper the hosting the more likely it is that you are sharing a package with hundreds or even thousands of other sites, some good and some bad. The way around this is to stick with your cheap and cheerful hosting but to get your own Dedicated Irish IP.
>> Check if your site is in a bad neighborhood
So Who Do I Use – Answer Spiral Hosting
As I am sure you have gathered there is a recommendation in here amongst all this techno-babble. I use an Irish Hosting Company called Spiral Hosting for the following reasons;
- They are very fast servers
- Security is top class
- Up Time is as close to 100% as I have seen from any host
- Control Panel is cPanel, which saves me hours every day
- They offer dedicated Irish IPs for €20 🙂
- Hosting is affordable €40 per year does most clients
- Most importantly is Support, the guys and girls at spiral are top class and courteous
