Guide · 6 min read
How to choose a data center location for your website
Latency, where your visitors are, data-residency rules and when a CDN matters more than the server location.
Where your server physically lives decides how far every request has to travel. Choose well and pages feel instant; choose badly and every click carries a delay no amount of optimisation can remove. Here is how to decide.
Why distance matters
Data in fibre travels at roughly two-thirds of the speed of light, about 200 km per millisecond. A round trip therefore costs around 1 ms for every 100 km of cable, before routers, congestion and the server itself add their share. Loading a page takes many round trips (DNS, connection setup, TLS, the page, its assets), so distance adds up quickly.
As a rule of thumb: a server in the same country usually answers within a few tens of milliseconds; one on another continent often takes 100 ms or more for every round trip.
Step 1: find out where your visitors are
If you already have a site, your analytics will tell you which countries your visitors come from. If you are starting fresh, think about who you sell to: a Croatian bakery and a US software company need different answers.
Step 2: consider data rules
Some organisations prefer or are required to keep personal data within a particular region, for example the European Union or the United Kingdom. If that applies to you, pick a location that satisfies it. (This is general information, not legal advice; your legal adviser has the final word.)
Step 3: pick the nearest location that offers your product
Not every product is available everywhere. These are our current locations and what each one offers:
| Location | Available |
|---|---|
| Chicago, United States | Hosting, Semi-dedicated, Dedicated, KVM VPS |
| Coventry, United Kingdom | Hosting, Semi-dedicated, Dedicated, KVM VPS |
| Sydney, Australia | Hosting, Semi-dedicated, KVM VPS |
| Pori, Finland | Hosting, Semi-dedicated, OpenVZ VPS |
| Sofia, Bulgaria | Hosting, Semi-dedicated, OpenVZ VPS |
When a CDN matters more than the server
A content delivery network keeps copies of your static files (images, CSS, JavaScript) on servers around the world. If your audience is global, a CDN often does more for speed than moving the origin server, the heavy files come from nearby, while only the dynamic page itself travels from your server.
Quick recommendations
- Mostly European visitors: a European location such as Coventry, Pori or Sofia, depending on the product you need.
- Mostly North American visitors: Chicago, central, with good reach to both coasts.
- Australia and New Zealand: Sydney.
- Worldwide: the location nearest to your largest group of visitors, plus a CDN.
You choose the location at checkout. See all locations for details.
Frequently asked
Does server location affect SEO?
Indirectly. Search engines care about page speed and user experience; a server close to your visitors helps with both. Your domain, content and language matter far more for local rankings.
Should I choose the location closest to me or to my visitors?
To your visitors. Where you personally sit only matters for your own admin work.
Do I still need a CDN?
If your audience is spread across continents, a CDN for images, scripts and styles usually helps more than moving the server. If most visitors are in one region, a nearby server is often enough.