The Importance of Server Location

With the world seemingly being more connected than it has ever been in the past decade or so, it often leads to the misconception that although every mobile is connected to the internet and cloud computing is fervent throughout most tech lingo, people overlook the importance of physical server location and how it can be beneficial to you. While it is true, that you can access information from any place, server location still plays a large role in everything. Here are a few factors that could just swing you back to thinking just whether your servers are in the right place or not.

Is server location actually important?

The answer to this question is simple. Yes it matters. A server doesn't only get damaged digitally, the potential of a physical harm is likely as well. Placing your server in a safer environment as compared to a potentially harmful one is greatly beneficial.

Server location affects the speed of your service!

The physical location that your servers are hosted in can affect the speed of hosted websites. This is important for local searches as it greatly effects the outcome of your visitors. Research shows that a visitor would leave a website if it doesn't load within 3 seconds; sometimes even less. 3 seconds isn't a lot of time, but it could ultimately result in poor conversions for website visitors.

Server Location; with respects to your website rankings, traffic and consequent success.

This aspect gets overlooked by most site owners and gets very minimal coverage in web design or SEO articles. Most articles are written by American writers and therefore are written from their perspective and location. However, if you happen to like many site owners in the world who are not from America, the view on this can be greatly beneficial.

If you are a business who has a significant client base in a native country you should depending on where you are, where your website is (hosted), what you offer, where your customers are, and whether you are a searcher, or a site owner. This greatly affects the outcome, and with respects to SEO, Server Location may be the crunch factor that converts searches into potential visitors. 

What this means for Local (Malaysian), and South East Asian countries?

Find a colocation server that suits you. Something close by. With us, EVERWORKS, Malaysia's Leading Datacenter and Mobile Hosting Provider that provides industry standard server colocation could be an easy option to consider. With a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee, a World Class Data Center, and Lowest Price Guarantee, all you need to do is just give it a try. 

For further reading: You can find out why European & American companies are preferring cloud computing, whereas, Malaysian companies are opting for hybrid colocation.

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Please share with us what you think in the comments section below.

1. What is your experience with server location?
2. Does it affect your site's speed depending on where you put your site?
3. Do you think Server Location affects SEO (considering it gets so little coverage)?

photo by psdblast map | psdblast poster

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SEO Tips - Importance of Server Location

Server location is fundamental for International Audiences, especially for Malaysian companies.

Server Location with respect to your site rankings, traffic, and consequent success in an aspect that often gets overlooked by many site owners and one that gets minimal coverage in web design or SEO articles. Most articles are written internally by mainly American writers and therefore not giving enough attention to International audiences, especially for small countries like for example Malaysia.

Location, Localization with SEO

There is a problem that search engines have in a way split up their searches into country-specific search opportunities. Google know where you are because of the IP address allocated to PC. This impacts searches greatly on businesses, contributing to country-specific search opportunities. This can be good and bad depending on where you are, where your site is, where your customers are, where your searches are, and whether you are a search owner or not.

Location and Searches | Google Location Based Search

For a searcher in Malaysia you would have noticed awhile back that your Google sessions automatically, by default, go to www.google.com.my. Searchers in the USA are blissfully unaware of this phenomenon.

The results of your search will also be biased towards sites that are physically located within your geographic area or at least within the area surrounding it, but if you were to do the same search on the different country-specific versions of Google you would get somewhat different results.

How to win the Global Localization Game

If you are a business who has a significant traffic or client base in more than one country, it makes sense to register all the local domain names within your country. You can then build a global network of mini-sites customized specifically for those markets. (Be sure you do not blindly duplicate your website contents, because it is a breach of Google's Webmaster Guidelines)

AND

If you are a business who has significant traffic or client base in only one country it makes sense to only register one local domain name and focus more on that specific country. Building a network mainly revolving within that market. Be careful not to spam labels, or keywords because too much of them could get Google to think you are just spamming. 

EVERWORKS helps Malaysian companies maximize local Malaysian traffic

EVERWORKS's Hybrid Network is designed for our datacenter hosting clients who need to serve generally more Malaysian based traffic compared to International traffic; most of their site traffic is from Malaysia. EVERWORKS is a leading Datacenter Hosting Provider (DHP) in Malaysia, that deploys a Hybrid Bandwidth System that allows its customers to customize their bandwidth pattern.

Further reading: What is EVERWORKS' Hybrid Bandwidth System?

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What are your thoughts? Please share what you have to say about Server Location and SEO in the comments section below.

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Save Energy for your Business | Malaysia

Going green has been a hot topic for the most part of these past few years, where the focus has been to reduce what we use, and to ensure that anything that we use is used carefully with as minimal wastage as possible.

Going Green does have positive implications that may draw business interest, apart from saving the planet as a whole. Having a commitment to reduce use, and to maximize use without wastage is already defining the idea of cost maximizing measures.

It isn't rocket science. Use what you need, and make sure what you use creates as little impact on the environment as possible. Even better if the byproduct of what you have used can be reused cleanly.

Improve your power factor

Power Factor is simply put to be the effectiveness of your machine. If your machine requires more power to perform tasks that another machine would, it simply means that your machine has a low power factor.

The solution is simple. Increase your power factor, your machines would then use less electricity to produce the results you require, resulting in a healthier electricity bill.

(For TNB subscribers - Malaysian based companies - increasing your power factor comes with better perks. You avoid having to pay an additional 1.5% to 3% on power factor surcharge. Further reading: Power Factor Surcharges.)

Use light wisely

Lighting is a topic that draws a lot of debate, how much is actually too much light. Do workers perform better under dimmer light or under brighter conditions? According to Hawthorne Studies where the initial focus was on on the level of illumination in manufacturing facilities where it was expected that in brighter conditions workers would have improved performance, but there was insufficient evidence showing to this relationship. The conclusion is to find the right balance between what works for the workers as well as the business's costs.

Here are some alternatives to reducing electricity costs even further:

1. Install timed room lighting. Where times during the day lights would switch off (in places that there are ample natural light).
2. Install motion-sensor to reduce wastage of lights in bathrooms, storage, and places with little traffic.
3. Increase more natural light accessibility as possible.

Air conditioning

Air conditioners were created to create a comfortable environment to work in. Raising the temperature settings by 1°C can have a significant effect on your electricity bill, and have little effect on everyone working.

Off-peak hours operations bonus

Re-scheduling your operations to run electricity dependent equipment during off-peak hours, will increase your savings up to 20%. Find out more here.

Host in Malaysia, and Reduce Costs with EVERWORKS

EVERWORKS houses over 200 Dedicated and Colocation servers over 3 Major Data centers in Malaysia. Having a wide range of data centers allow you to choose the best network blueprint to suit your business requirements. Use EVERWORKS Colocation service with confidence, as the service comes with a 30 day money back guarantee, world class data centers at your disposal, the lowest price guaranteed, and an unbeatable switch option to any EVERWORKS existing server of your choice with no Migration Fee imposed.

Find out more on EVERWORKS Colocation here.
Further reading: EVERWORKS's Colocation Usage Policy?

Find out more on Electricity in Malaysia from TNB Malaysia | Image by PSD Blast

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