We are about to invest in some new servers in the USA as most of our servers are in the UK and NL. We will later put a "Pick a location" on our checkout form.

Do you think location really matters these days?

I dont think it matters anymore these days. Support and uptime are more important, regardless of where the servers are located.

Yes. And not just for speed's sake. I prefer locations that are not prone to natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes and floods.

Also, being in the U.S., it's easier for me to deal with a host that has business offices in the U.S.

I assume that you have tasted web hosting service before purchase and in this matter you need to go ahead and do not pay any attention on it

If you purchase server in the United states I believe that it is nothing to worrty about the location

I suppose that depends. Depends on many issues and indexes. But overall if you have web site hosted somewhere in the Europe or in the US or Canada you will never had huge troubles with it around the world

I think this would be a wise decision to launch a US-based datacenter as you'll be able to offer a variety of locations to clients, and this is still important for some sites, say video streaming projects. I guess speed is the most important factor here.

Server location is a big factor in buying a host. The more your server is closer to its target audience, the transfers will be faster.

I always try to get servers as close to my target audience as possible, while trying to factor in any possible down times. For instance I don't go for servers in areas near hurricanes, etc.

We avoid areas that are famous for huricanes, floods, natural disasters and we try to get them close to our clients and their site visitors.

I have seen several companies which offer different locations: seohosting.com (that is HG division), espinda.com (have servers as in the US as in the UK), innohost etc. Fo far so good and you can migrate withing one web hosting company there.

as long as they are located in a reputable datacenter then location doesn't really matter. you don't want a server being hosted in a second rate data center or someone's basement

As far as I know, location of a server may slightly take effect on a speed of response (0.2 - 0.4 seconds difference for ADSL users in EU and US, for example). So it's not too bad to consider a location as well since there are many decent offers out there

Some countries have certain content restrictions, so the loccation may matter!

Dont forget about legal some people want less restrictions, if your hosting for others EU would be better.

Also where are most of your clients from, what are the services. Closer the server quicker the ping time, but then because every one has broadband you wouldnt see much diffence. Uptime and Service its the main.

Please remember that if you are located in the U.K and you are trying to connect to your web site that is hosted in the U.S., the physical location in U.K (thousands of miles away from the U.S data center), you will notice that your U.K hosted web site will be slow for you. However, for visitors located in the U.S that connect to your U.S hosted web site, they will not experience the latency that you do because they are located geographically closer to the U.S data center. In other words, American visitors will not see any latency, however; visitors such as yourself in the U.K may experience some web site latency.