I have been in the internet business since 2004, and for once I can appreciate a claim by any internet service provider stating an advantage of hosting from a particular location over another. It may sound weird but I today can substantiate my claim. To some gurus this may be obvious but to many of us it could be a secrete to be discovered. I have come to know that some internet service providers don’t know their products as much as we expect them to, but they rely on that the internet is friendly and developers almost always provide quick guides and/or troubleshooting help. I was surprised to learn that a service provider may not know why a website hosted with them would not open in some countries but do to others. I found out the answer ‘it matters the location where you host your website from’.

 

1. Background

 

I have started my own web hosting service at yeboyesrates.com and its no secrete that I’m outsourcing the web-hosting space to companies overseas. I do so because of varied reasons, some being the benefit of advanced technology, flexibility and a wide variety to choose from. I won’t delve much into the advantages of hosting abroad but will focus on the importance of going an extra mile trying to get the solution on your own.

 

Being an armature in information technology and systems, I have made it a point to bring in experts to my business. As such I’m working with a full time qualified consultant on website designing and hosting from Zimbabwe. Relying on the strength of internet tools like chatting and emails, we work like we are sharing the same room. As much as I have sole control over yeboyesrates.com, I still share important information with my colleague in Zimbabwe, such as passwords and usernames for the controlling websites. The difference in location but working from the same environment drove us to the solution of our teething problem. This had remained a secret to us as well as the service provider. Simply stated, ‘some web hosting locations are superior to others’. In this case US (Washington D.C.) was superior that UK (London).

 

2. The Problem

 

Like we often do, I exchanged a URL (web address) with the consultant as an assignment for the next hour, guess what? The website was not opening from Zimbabwe. At first I thought it was a typo issue and resent the link several times, at each instance requesting a retry. It actually didn’t work until I consulted the service provider. I got all sorts of funny answers from their support team, one of which was that the user IP address could be blocked. None of their suggested solutions solve the problem. I eventually remain with the option of changing the service provider. Just at the verge of taking this option, I got a client whom I decided to host from the US. I decided to request my colleague in Zimbabwe to test the website for me and give her contributions, to our surprise, the website opened.

 

3. The Solution

 

My greatest task was then to find out why this particular site was opening in Zimbabwe while the other refused. After a thorough search, I figured out that the only difference in the used parameters was the hosting location. As this was an urgent issue to us, I quickly turned to my control panel and change the hosting location from the UK to the US. Guess what? Within 2 hours, my colleague in Zimbabwe was online telling me of a great breakthrough, ‘the website was opening’. This was a breakthrough for both of us.

 

4. Conclusion

 

A lesson was learnt, ‘it matters the location where you host your website from’. It’s also important to try all possible solutions before you go for option B, otherwise you may find yourself moving from one service to the other without making any progress. Like it was in our case, we found a solution on our own and it helped us avoid the hustle of learning new procedures from another service provider.

 

 You are welcome to visit our web hosting website at yeboyesrates.com, and we shall make sure we choose the best web hosting locations for best performance of your site.

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