When you’re shopping around for a potential web host, few factors are as important as the server’s location. It can have a huge impact on website loading speeds depending upon which internet exchange is being used and where the website’s visitors are coming from, and it can also determine which laws and legislation your site is covered by.
The average person doesn’t spend a huge amount of time thinking about where the services that they access are located, and that’s not really surprising. After all, if they can tweet their tweets, gram their grams and share their status updates, it doesn’t really matter what’s powering the underlying hardware.
But when it comes to shopping around for hosting, it’s important to do a little more research. The US is an option, of course, but Europe offers an appealing alternative and it has the infrastructure to match. The Netherlands in particular is growing at a phenomenal rate, with one in three carrier-neutral European data centers choosing to base themselves in Amsterdam.
At EuroVPS, we’re proud to say that our hardware is based in Amsterdam. Here are just a few of the reasons why.
1. Sustainable and renewable energy sources
Being based in Amsterdam has its advantages. Holland uses plenty of wind power and other renewable energy sources, and combining that with EvoSwitch allows us to keep our offering as green as possible. Data centers use a lot of juice, which is why we have a moral obligation to offset that electricity consumption by using renewable sources.
2. No NSA or MI5
Yep, that’s right. Europe has some of the most forward-thinking laws when it comes to privacy etc. which means that it’s a popular choice for people who don’t want to have to deal with government agencies and shady laws – particularly given the current political climate. The NSA and MI5 are pretty good arguments for why you shouldn’t host your site in the US or the UK.
3. The largest internet exchange in the world (AMX-IX)
Another great reason to host your site in Amsterdam is that the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) is the largest of its kind in the world. The internet exchange that a web host uses is basically like the road that leads out of a city, and it’s better to use the six-lane freeway of the AMS-IX than the dirt roads of some of the other providers.
4. You can use a CDN if needed
Europe is reasonably centralised, which means you usually get pretty good loading times for visitors throughout the world. If that’s not enough, you can boost performance still further by using a content delivery network (CDN) to serve up cached versions of your site elsewhere in the world. The best strategy is usually to choose the most reliable origin server as that’s what really matters the most. The CDN is the extra little nugget that makes sure that your enterprise site/application is running quickly throughout the rest of the world.
5. Better technology
European hosts tend to invest more heavily in hardware and customer service, especially when compared to hosts in less established countries who will skimp on costs and pass those savings on to their customers. But for people who are serious about their sites, it makes more sense to pay a premium. After all, you get what you pay for!
6. Strong competition
There are many hosting providers in the Netherlands for all of the above reasons, so the standards are higher. The more competition there is, the more web hosts need to be on their toes to provide the best service they can. We thrive on that competition – and it’s our customers who reap the rewards of that.
Conclusion
These are just the main reasons for hosting a site in Europe, but there are plenty more and we’d be here all day if I listed all of them. The truth is that every website is different and they all have different needs, and European hosting isn’t necessarily for everyone.
That said, European hosting is a solid choice and a pretty good all-rounder, and the Netherlands in particular comes with its fair share of advantages. That’s why we base ourselves there, and our customers and clients seem to approve.
So if you’re in the market for a top quality Netherlands based VPS, get in touch! We’re passionate about what we do and we love to geek out about servers, speeds and security. And if European hosting isn’t a good fit for you, we’ll tell you. What have you got to lose?
