For Canadian customers, the issue of where their hosting company is located may occasionally come up. It might be tempting to consider one of the trendier companies based in the U.S. or elsewhere, if they offer cheaper pricing or other sign up perks. But there are distinct advantages to going with a host based in Canada. Here are 5 primary benefits to consider:
1. Search Engine Optimization
There is not a direct link between search engine rankings and the country in which your website is hosted. However, in their attempt to be as relevant to customers as possible, Google and other search engines would take into account your company’s Canadian IP address anytime a Canadian customer is looking for something local. Over time, this subtle advantage could add up to significant benefits for your company.
2. Site Performance
When you visit a website on the Internet, that information has to arrive to your computer via a vast network of optical cable. You should know by now the great importance of site performance and site loading speed on the likelihood of your customers to stick around on your site. It’s simple: having your hosting based in Canada shortens the distance information has to travel to get to your main customer base. Factors like CDNs can mitigate some of this location dependence, but it still makes the most sense to have your website hosted closer to where you expect your main user base to be living.
3. DMCA Concerns
As a business, you have every interest in your website data remaining safe and in good working order. There are countless stories of FBI agents raiding datacenters and seizing servers which contain allegedly illegal content. This makes some users of shared hosting services nervous, because they don’t want the server their website is hosted on to be seized because of foul play by another website. And, while American web hosting providers have at times complied with DMCA takedown requests, even ones without a lot of legitimacy, Canadian companies have the right to withstand these seizure attempts.
Canadian web hosting providers are not required to immediately comply with DMCA takedown requests. Instead, we have the right to review the claim and if necessary isolate the site in question from our other clients. If the issue is escalated and makes it to the courts, Canadian courts have a better track record than their American counterparts of denying overly broad search and seizure requests brought about by the DMCA.
4. Pricing
Like any business, you want affordability and predictability in your expenditures. At this point in the game, Canadian hosting providers are competitive with their USA peers, and provide an equal or greater level of service. We also bill our customers in Canadian dollars, which means you don’t have to worry about currency fluctuations and the way they affect your regular payments. Finally, with the introduction of HST across a large portion of Canada, Canadian companies who choose a Canadian web hosting provider no longer have to pay any tax on that service, as any HST paid can be claimed as an input-tax-credit come tax time.
5. Canadian Pride
Choosing a Canadian hosting company can be about more than cold hard benefits. As proud Canadians, we here at CanSpace Solutions take pride in running a company with infrastructure wholly based in Canada, creating Canadian jobs, and supporting our Canadian customers. We hope our clients take equal pride in these things.
Want to chat about what CanSpace Solutions can do for your website? Get in touch with us today!
