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Just because you sign up for with a webhost charging in UK Pounds, or that have a .co.uk domain name don't just assume that the server hardware is located in the UK. A fairly large proportion of UK based hosting companies use servers housed in the USA.
Why is this a problem you may ask? Well, there are two main reasons why, if your target audience is UK based you should have your website based in the UK. The first is simply speed. Sure it isn't going to make a massive difference to the majority of users unless your site is graphic intensive or uses large amounts of data, however the delay is still there and can be significant. The second and probably more important reason for having UK based hosting is to help your search engine ranking. Search engine bots, or spiders make a note of where your site is hosted and this affects where you rank on which engines. For example if you wanted a good ranking on Google.co.uk but were hosted in Germany (as is the case with one of the largest UK hosts) how do you think Google would rank your site compared to one hosted in London.....
This is just the first part of the first of many articles about setting up an online business - Part 2 to follow shortly. {mos_sb_discuss:2}
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