Hello,

I have an online store which currently operates 2 separate domains www.myredpacket.com and www.myredpacket.co.uk. Currently, my web hosting company as well as web developer, shopping cart is based in the UK.

I am looking to change web hosting company for the US (.com) domain

Question:
Is it better to keep both the domains with the same web hosting company in the UK taking into consideration that my web developer and shopping cart are operated from there.

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

I would keep ONE host. Having multiple ones might prove to serve very little purpose if your services are primarily UK.

I'd just use the one host, many hosts offer the ability to host a number of domains on the single package. I dont think there is any need to find a host in a different country for the .com side but I could be wrong.

With regards to your website do you offer free delivery on all your products or a selected few?

My host allows me to have the.tv domain, and that originates from a little island somewhere. And if you should decide to get a host over here, I wouldn't recommend StartLogic. They are really cheap, but a lot of stuff seems to break regularly, they charge you for free features like Joomla and Google Webmaster tools, and support is hit or miss. Sometimes they get to you quickly, a lot of times they don't.

I would stick with one host, most will allow multiple domains to be added and it will keep your costs down.

Other hosts offer reseller accounts, which will allow you to "resell" or host multiple websites, these packages are generally higher but allow other users to edit specific pages on either domain.

Moving the .com site to a UK based server would get the site listed in "pages from UK" searches. That would be an advantage.

I the two sites are identical, you should seriously consider consolidating to one of the domains, and have the other one do a 301 permanent redirect to it. Search engines don't like duplicate content.

Just my two cents.

The slight advantage to having a separate host for each region (faster connect/load times) is GREATLY outweighed by the administrative nightmare of code fixes/updates/extensions needing to be implemented to two or more different servers at two or more different hosts.

Doing what you suggest (getting a US-based host for the .com site) would speed up the website for US visitors by like a tenth of a second, but it adds so much more work on your part to keep the different sites in sync that I would never do it.

Also there are the SEO implications as mentioned, search engines do not like multiple domains for the same site. I would do as suggested and use a 301 redirect and use EITHER the .com or the .co.uk for the site, with the other domains redirecting to it.

I would stick with the same host in the UK.

You can keep your sites within one company for sure if the host offers different datacenter location, I think utropicmedia.net is one of the suchlike companies.

Yeah, try to use only one host. Who knows the hosting company will give you a discount.

Hi thanks for your advice. Let me elaborate a little about the site. The reason why we have 2 domains is that it is 2 separate businesses - one operated from UK and one from US. We keep separate inventory log, pay different taxes....We also maintain 2 admin systems and our current web developer maintains both our sites.

With this in mind I don't think we can consolidate into one domain and use 301 redirect.

Also, is it better to have shared hosting or VPS?

Many thanks,
Alice

I'd stick with the shared hosting. It doesn't seem like your running something that most of us couldn't handle .

The only reason you could possibly have for using two different hosting companies for practically the same business would be your target audience. By keeping the UK section on a UK server, the UK visitors would have a faster loading time. Likewise with the US hosting company and the US visitors.

However, If this isn't what you are trying to accomplish, then Id just stick with your normal host. Although it IS a good idea.

I hope that Helped

Andrei

Hi andrei155,

Are you saying stick with 2 domains and use the same host?

Thanks

Originally Posted by andrei155

I'd stick with the shared hosting. It doesn't seem like your running something that most of us couldn't handle .

The only reason you could possibly have for using two different hosting companies for practically the same business would be your target audience. By keeping the UK section on a UK server, the UK visitors would have a faster loading time. Likewise with the US hosting company and the US visitors.

However, If this isn't what you are trying to accomplish, then Id just stick with your normal host. Although it IS a good idea.

I hope that Helped

Andrei

Well it depends. Why did you want to to split it up in the first place?

Using the same host, doesn't limit you to the same website. You could most definitely run the two websites you suggested, with different clients, files, admin areas, etc.. on the same host, under different directories. By simply setting a domain to resolve a certain directory, you could run as many instances of a "website" as you want.

For example:
www.google.com is your main website, and it goes to the root directory of your shared account.

www.yahoo.com is your second domain. You want to run it on the same host as www.google.com. So you could start by making a directory called "yahoo" (could be anything) in your ome directory.

Now you have www.google.com/yahoo

with cpanel, you can set on "addon domain" so it resolves any directory you want. By resolving yahoo.com to www.google.com/yahoo or rather "/yahoo" you are allowing yourself to run two domain on the same host, with two different websites.

Now, in your case, Having two websites IS an option. However, I presume that they'd be very similar. Maybe you could incorporate some kind of feature that lets your users choose which store to operate on. the UK based one, or the US based one. It's really up to you.

For example:
www.google.com is your main website, and it goes to the root directory of your shared account.

www.yahoo.com is your second domain. You want to run it on the same host as www.google.com. So you could start by making a directory called "yahoo" (could be anything) in your ome directory.

And You may have as separate acces for them as through the main web site FTP

Join your efforts to gather both services in one single host.

Particulary if shopping carts are in your site.


just an opinion.

Just stick to one host for both domains. Ask your host if they have any US servers though, if they don't that isn't such a big deal either. Access times from the US to your UK host should be about the same as those from the UK. Internet speed nowadays is so blazingly fast I doubt US customers would notice a lag if there was one.

Originally Posted by SamOwen

Just stick to one host for both domains. Ask your host if they have any US servers though, if they don't that isn't such a big deal either. Access times from the US to your UK host should be about the same as those from the UK. Internet speed nowadays is so blazingly fast I doubt US customers would notice a lag if there was one.

I think the question is in the prices can be.

The location of the hosting may depend on various reasons. If you expect huge traffic from a certain country you can host the site there.

Originally Posted by phppoddotcom

The location of the hosting may depend on various reasons. If you expect huge traffic from a certain country you can host the site there.

Surely it's better to use the host from the location of your clients.