Pingdom conducted research to find out the best cities and countries in the world of website hosting . Let’s look at what they discovered, and see if the results should affect the choice you make as to who your website hosting company will be.
US: #1
Some interesting facts about the United States:
The US hosts approximately 42 percent of the top million sites. After the US is Germany, China, the UK, Russia, Singapore, and Sweden respectively.
Out of the top million sites, 7,936 different cities host them. Of those 7,936 cities, 10 percent of the top million sites are hosted in the top three cities.
Here are the top ten cities when it comes to web hosting:
1. Houston, TX: 50,598 sites
2. Mountain View, CA: 29,594 sites
3. Dallas, TX: 24,822 sites
4. Scottsdale, AZ: 23,210 sites
5. San Antonio, TX: 21,808 sites
6. Provo, UT: 201,691 sites
7. Ashburn, VA: 14,871 sites
8. San Francisco, CA: 13,214 sites
9. Chicago, IL: 13,125 sites
10. Beijing, China: 11,273 sites
It should be quite evident from this list that the United States easily dominates the field of web hosting.
What About Other Countries?
Let’s look at the data by country. Of course, the US is number one, hosting a total of 431,214 total websites. Germany takes the number two spot with 82,152 sites hosted, and China is number three, hosting 49,730 websites. After that come the UK (37,829 sites), France (35,777 sites), Japan (35,138 sites), and Russia (31,134 sites).
If you then look at the data by continent, it’s no surprise that the US is still number one. Europe is second (314,317 sites hosted), and Asia comes in at number three (114,571 sites hosted).
What This Means For Your Website
You’re probably reading this and thinking, “Hey, I should switch to a host in one of the top cities or countries!” That might not be the best idea.
Let’s think about the kinds of websites that are in the top million: YouTube, PayPal, Facebook, country-specific versions of Google, Blogger, and more are in the top 50.Now, think about the fact the majority of these websites rely on their own servers, and then think about the space required to house the servers used to power these websites.
Chances are pretty high that you don’t need all that space, unless of course your website is transmitting a high volume of data each and every day. If that is the case, go ahead and sign on with one of the hosting companies located in one of the top cities. If not, don’t worry about it.
What’s Most Important
The only thing you should base your decision on is what your business needs. It doesn’t matter how popular a hosting provider is, nor does it matter how big or small it is. Oftentimes, the little guy can provide more personalized service and more options for customization over the big dogs. More importantly, if you stay local, you are contributing to your economy and upping the chances your city will be included on this list one day!
