Getting a Website, etc.

[Dibs-h]

Seems a few folk are getting websites and then getting stuck or unstuck at some point - so here's a Noddy's (or not so Noddy) guide to getting a website.

Now to get a website you need 2 things - a Domain and a Hosting account. Yes there are outfits that will offer to do it all for you, but there's always the small print which bites later. I am a HUGE advocate of separating the Registration of the Domains and the Hosting. You'll actually find that the majority of the World does separate the 2 - it's only Noobies that get caught out.

1. Domain Names

You'll need one. I'd suggest not getting one overly long and if it's business - get the .co.uk one and whilst you are at it, get the .com one too. For the minimal cost - stops someone masquerading as you. Even if it's not business - I'd suggest you still getting the .co.uk one. Sometimes the UK one is taken and you end up with a .com one - it doesn't matter hugely, as long as the 2 business are different. Imagine the issues if the line of business was the same! If that's the case and the .co.uk one is not available but the .com one is - I'd suggest you think of a different name.

Stuck for a name - http://www.name-boy.com is quite useful as it allows you to put 2 words in and comes up with a ton of similar words and checks if the domains are available.

2 . Registering a Domain Name

You can't actually buy one. You lease them for x yrs at a time. X for .co.uk one is 2 yrs minimum and others are 1 year minimum. Where do I lease one from? Registars - examples being

http://www.123-reg.co.uk
http://www.godaddy.com

There are others too.

The Godaddy one - I use for all domains other than .co.uk ones. Why - because there are countless discount codes floating around on the web - Google 'Godaddy discount codes' and within minutes you'll find ones that offer 30% off with no min spend. GoDaddy now do .co.uk domains - so I will be using them for my .co.uk ones as well & the discount codes help.

I do use http://www.123-reg.co.uk but that's for instances when someone like a client has the domain and they require me to have administrative control over than one (or more) domains but don't want me to have control over their account. For a one or 2 man band - not necessary!

Register your domains with a Registrar. As with all Registrars they will try and sell you extras,

- domain security,
- domain privacy,
- email,
- hosting,
- loads more

My advice - is to say NO to everything else! If asked about Nameservers just go for the defaults - as you are just registering the Domains, nothing more!

With both the above website\s - you'll effectively be creating User accounts at those sites with a Username & Password. Keep these safe as you'll need them to administer your domain later or enable moves etc.

Question: well a website has offered me some Gizmo for £50 per year and said that they will throw a free domain in.
Answer: No such thing as Free Lunch - it'll bite at some point!

Now you have the Domain Registration - Make a note of the date, as in 2 or however many yrs you have registered the domain for, it will expire! They don't always auto-renew, although some registrars will allow that. Forget to renew it - it'll be a pain to renew it or worse - you'll loose it and some snake will register it and try to make you pay ££'s for it!

Now the other half of the equation - Hosting.

3. Hosting.

A Domain isn't any good if you have nowhere for any content\pages. You need a hosting account. At the minimum you need a Shared Hosting Account. Shared? What's that - well it's like getting a flat in a tower block, each with it's own living room, bedroom, bathroom, etc. This is usually some pounds per month - say anywhere from £2-5. Anymore is taking the proverbial and any less is suspect!

A hosting account will give you a fixed amount of disk space and bandwidth (per month - just the bandwidth) - these are the key things to note. Bear in mind that even a hundred MB of disk space is ample and a few GB of bandwidth\month is more than sufficient.

Anyone offering Unlimited Disk space and Unlimited Bandwidth is lying! Walk away! Bandwidth has to be paid for! And disk space is never truly unlimited as it has to be mirrored and backup up and stored - so instantly for 1MB of space you use - costs the provider x3 as much.

Where do you get one - Google or ask around. I'd suggest you ask around. A good one - has their T&C's laid out and charges by the month. Anyone charging by the year - walk away.

If you are in the UK - you want a UK host with servers in the UK. Having a UK host with servers in Dallas - isn't exactly going to be helpful with the speed of the connection, a US Ip address, differing time windows. Believe me - pick a UK hosting provider and one with servers in UK data centres. Folk might disagree and say

"I've had my site on a US server and it hasn't caused me any issues"

Ask the commercial techies and they'll be insisting their UK business has UK hosts and UK based servers in UK based Data Centres with UK IP addresses. Believe me there is a reason for this "madness" and it doesn't cost anymore.

Once you have found the host - ask for the 2 Nameserver entries. These are just 2 IP addresses. Make a note of them!

A good hosting provider - will not only provide disk space and bandwidth, they will also provide POP email and SMTP email (on the standard port of 25 and alternatives such as 587)

3. Joining the 2 - Registration & Hosting.

You now have a domain registered and a hosting account. Remember the Domain you registered with a Registrar? The Username\Password that you created on their website? Yes? Well log into their website - there will be a login "button" on the homepage - they all have them.

You need to go the DNS control panel and need to alter 2 entries - Nameservers. You Hosting Provider will have given you 2 of them. These will either be 2 IP addresses or 2 names. Mix and match is highly unlikely. You could have been given the same IP address twice or the same name twice. This last bit - isn't a good sign of a "proper" Hosting Provider.

So you will have something like

NameServer1 = 132.234.44.178
NameServer2 = 132.234.44.179

Quite often sequential but needn't be.

or

NameServer1 = ns1.somedomain.co.uk
NameServer2 = ns2.somedomain.co.uk

The last pair is the most common. When you log into the DNS control panel you will find a place to change the Nameservers - replace the default entries with these 2 and click Submit\Save and you should see a message on the screen saying something long the lines of "Changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate". At this point you should be good to go.

Registration\Hosting - that's all there is to it!

At this point - should someone type your web address into a browser, they'll probably end up at a blank page or a noddy page that says "welcome to the home page of http://www.somedomain.co.uk"

Now you are ready to get your website up and running.

4. Email

The hosting provider will have given you details of the incoming & outgoing mail servers, along with the login details. Usual formats are as below, but need to be checked,

Incoming - mail.somedomain.co.uk (110)
useraccount - [email protected]
password - xxxxxx

Outgoing - mail.somedomain.co.uk (25 or 587 or something else)
useraccount - same as incoming
password - same as incoming

This all you need to get Outlook up and running or an IMAP account on an IPhone\HTC.

Conclusion.

So you now have you domain registered, a Hosting account to upload pages to and functioning email via Outlook or a phone.

FTP'ing to your account - there are countless results on the web, if you Google "FTP upload to website" and creating pages\sites - again loads of stuff on the web.

I've written this post is the net result of stuff over the years and not readily available in one place - well except my head!

Gotchas:

Free Lunches

- Get hosting with XY&Z and get a free domain. .co.uk domain names cost £3 or so per year - so they are throwing that in free but you are paying thru the nose for hosting! There are all sorts of fees to pay, should you ever wish to move elsewhere and everything has to be paid upfront for the year! Don't believe me - read the small print!

- Hosting provider only does inbound email not outbound. Bit like a bog that doesn't flush! Cr@p! You'll need to use your own ISP's outgoing mail servers, but if you start changing things like Return Email address. i.e. you start masquerading - things will quickly go pear shaped as your email will be tagged as spam and binned. Net result - folk will say that they sent you an email and you never replied. Even if you leave the Return email address alone - firstly the mismatch between the address they sent to and where the reply came from doesn't instill confidence\security and secondy you are on a DHCP address, so odds are that's in a Blacklist somewhere.

By using a proper SMTP (authenticated) relay (that's the technical term for the Hosting provider providing outbound SMTP) provided by the Hosting Provider - the "tags" all line up and your mail shouldn't get picked up as spam.

- My ISP is offering free hosting. What happens if you change ISP?

There endeth this lesson!

Hope it helps someone

Dibs

p.s. Can't be arsed - then either get fleeced\stuck\unstuck or get a man in and pay them to do it!
p.s.2 - when I'm next changing nameserver entries etc. I'll take a screen shot and post it up - it's dead easy changing nameservers but a picture speaks a 1000 words!

 

[Anonymous]

dibs

Great post, sure as well cleared a few things for me.

 

[loz]

Great post ,

Just a comment on the hosting, please think first and check any prereqs you might have are met.

Eg i need a certain number of mysql db's and certain versions of php to run my sites. - check the vendor does provide the facility ( or better still lets you install your own copies ( eg rental of linux space rather then web space )

Regs
Loz

 

[Dibs-h]

Great post ,

Just a comment on the hosting, please think first and check any prereqs you might have are met.

Eg i need a certain number of mysql db's and certain versions of php to run my sites. - check the vendor does provide the facility ( or better still lets you install your own copies ( eg rental of linux space rather then web space )

Regs
Loz

I was aiming it more at the noobies than those of us who can already suck eggs! :mrgreen:

But good point nonetheless - A good hosting provider should be able to give you a test account for a week or 2 to play with. Using the old phpinfo() command in a basic php file - should give you all the info regarding the versions\modules installed by a host.

If you want to install your own copies of stuff - then you won't be looking at a Shared Hosting account - altho these can & do offer unlimited DB's within your disk storage limits, etc. If wanting to install your own software - then you are looking at a VPS (Virtual Private Server - like a full server, without the Full cost, but also without the Full grunt of a Full server) at the minimum.

Dibs

 

[Hudson Carpentry]

Where do you get one - Google or ask around. I'd suggest you ask around. A good one - has their T&C's laid out and charges by the month. Anyone charging by the year - walk away.

Sorry and excuse my French but the above is utter bollox and is a negative on my VERY GOOD professional business.

I own a hosting company. Not only do I charge by the year (the larger packages have monthly payment options) but I only rent UK servers and provide a professional services backed up by the awards the company I rent from has won. They are considered one of the best in england which means my pay yearly packages are an award winning service (the hosting not my customer service or company)

Why would anyone pay £2-5 a month for a package when the yearly cost is so little its barely worth the hassle of setting up a Direct Debit/standing order etc.

My cheapest package is £5 and my most popular package is just under £20 a year. Why would you pay 41p a month. Hosting companies (like all other company account holders) get charged at there bank for every transaction and taking 12 DD payments a year would cost more than what the hosting package is worth. Not only does paying yearly save the hosting company money, the hosting company (well at least mine) will pass that saving on to you.

I agree that you should by your domain names else where to a degree. Im to small of a company to compete with the domain name prices of the larger companies so I do recommend my customers buy there domain else where many don't want the hassle with the extra paperwork evolved or want to keep it all in one place. As a small host I can offer more for less hosting wise as the larger companies will charge a price based on what they can get due to the size of there company.

As many busy companies or small one man bands will not want the extra 12 transactions to account for paying yearly is something of an advantage along with the lower cost "good" hosts will give for yearly payments.

The word Unlimited is the "wrong" word to use but don't stay away from the companies that use it as its only a technical fact that its wrong. In theory its the correct use. I use the word Unmetered. However from the customers point of view if the host will just expand the hard drive space if they go over the servers HDD limit then it is unlimited to the customer. The biggest and best hosting companies in the world use the word unlimited.

Im sorry but as your "opinion" could have had a negative effect on my business I felt raged to voice my opinion.

 

[loz]

And yet you advertise "from 34p a month" for hosting ???


I wanted to read more - but the read more button isnt working...........................

 

[Dibs-h]

Yes you could pay yearly for such small amounts but how many will refund pro rata part way thru the year?

It was more aimed at the outfits that want 100+ upfront for the year and the T&C's don't give any refunds.

There are plenty of hosts that are fly by night outfits, not you of course. But how many noobs can tell the difference?

The bit you raged about was written from a customers perspective not a hosts respective. Such perspectives don't always match.

Even the unmetered bit, we'll have to disagree as extra disk costs as does bandwidth.

A host can't keep giving it away endlessly. To give away unmetered bandwidth is to be over selling it as the host has a fixed amount per month. We have whole racks in data centres so know such things are charged in this manner.

Dibs

 

[Hudson Carpentry]

And yet you advertise "from 34p a month" for hosting ???


I wanted to read more - but the read more button isnt working...........................

You can not pay 34p a month thats an advertising trick most hosts use. Thats the before vat price if divided by 12 on the £5 package.

On that page it does say that its in a test mode!

http://tmw-hosting.co.uk/packages/compare.php
Is what I charge and for what packages. I haven't changed that page for some 3 years I think. At the time my packages and prices was cheaper and more featured then 1 and 1. Probably need updating now.

I fully admit that my hosting website is far from completed which don't look good. I wish I had the time to complete it, like I wish I had time update my portfolio (my HCF website is more important to me at the min). Most of my customers are word of mouth or clients I develop software or websites for, I even have other develops/designers that use my hosting services (they get a discount also as they sign up many a month). But that said anyone that rents servers from Heartinternet and uses either there resellers package or there server software to sell hosting packages from gets all the benefits of hearts award winning services.

My services (and im not advertising) are just as professional as bigger companies, just a s reliable and offer just as good if not better hosting service. Most so it the most user friendly and simple hosting panel they have ever used (again not my work the work of heart internet). My only let down is that I have to currently manually set up customers. That said all I need is there email address as the system auto generates there passwords and send them a professional welcome email and there address for the bill.

Anyhow I was only using my "hosting services" as a point to say hang on, paying yearly is by no far a bad thing. Im not the only one with servers or resellers accounts from professional hosts and charge only a fraction and take yearly payments.

 

[Hudson Carpentry]

Even the unmetered bit, we'll have to disagree as extra disk costs as does bandwidth.

Dibs

It may cost the host to expand but if they are expanding because someone has taken use of there unlimited space or bandwidth, that cost to the host can NOT be placed onto that customer if indeed they are paying for what is advertised as unlimited. It don't effect the customer one bit and don't deem a Host a bad one if they choose to advertise as unlimited. If there terms said something else, trading standards would have there say.

Anyhow. I don't have the time to do my website so I shouldn't be starting arguments on here (hammer) in the time I should be doing clients websites. IF the boss asks im on a brake :lol:

 

[Dibs-h]

Offering unmetered bandwidth and disk and then as the host having to pay more can turn a profitable business into an unprofitable one.

What happens then?

With all things you get what you pay for. IMO such marketing gimmicks are a sign of a poor business model.

We can agree to disagree.

 

[Dibs-h]

I'm not having a dig at you! The post was written to educate noobs.

And the safer road was taken.

 

[Louise-Paisley]

My host offers unlimited space/ bandwidth..

I absolutely do not believe that to be true and I am pretty sure if I put up a website that used up a couple of TB of space and had 20,000 daily visitors it would become quite apparent that the claims are not true.

However, 99.9% of people who take up the hosting do not use these large amounts of space, most will have a fairly modest website and maybe a forum with a few dozen people who regularly contribute. They are able to make these claims because the majority of users do not need that level, the few users who do use larger storage and bandwidth amounts are not impacting costs to the host because they know for every one of those they have there is another 99 who are only using 1 or 2 gigs tops and get 10 visits a day.

So, although the claims are probably a load of bunkum, for most of us its as near true as makes no real difference. I have several sites on my package, none of them is anything like facebook of course, and my websites are very rarely down and if they are it is usually only for minutes, and they operate as fast as a web site needs to - I have never to date had any complaints from anyone about the speed.

The idea that you need hosting on UK servers for speed is just a bit silly really, it is good advice for the likes of Argos etc which have millions of hits per week, but come on lets be realistic here, for the vast majority of people here putting a website online a few hundred visits a week tops is a more likely figure and providing a page is loaded in less than a couple of seconds no one is going to give a hoot. Yes if 15 seconds later the page still has not displayed everyone will be back on google looking for another but you can pull a page from the USA in well under a second - providing of course that you do not have 20 x 10mb high res images on it and if you do then you have already eliminated a large section of your audience using mobile devices.

It is obvious that if your website reaches a point where you are getting 10000 visitors a day and using TB's of space then NO shared host is going to serve your needs, at this level the website would be hosted on your own leased servers, but it is not something anyone reading this thread is ever likely to even need to consider

 

[Dibs-h]

The idea that you need hosting on UK servers for speed is just a bit silly really

Nowt like selective quoting! :roll:

If it had just been about speed I would have said so, but going back to what I wrote

you want a UK host with servers in the UK. Having a UK host with servers in Dallas - isn't exactly going to be helpful with the speed of the connection, a US IP address, differing time windows."

I think you'll find having a US based IP address is not as "helpful" as you might think. :wink:

You may not use significant resources, can you say the same about the other 2,656 websites on the same server\IP as yours?

Dibs

 

[Eric The Viking]

Dibs and Hudson are both right: you basically get what you pay for, and it's shark-infested waters, too.

I work on a retainer for a good local IT company. we offer cloud services and domain hosting to our clients. I also do freelance work of various sorts, including web design.

Recently I tried to set up a web site on a very well known web service for a small client. Domain name reg: OK. Web hosting: looked OK, as the service supported Joomla, which I usually use. So I got on with developing the site locally.

When I came to upload it, I discovered to my horror that the "service" was offering a hacked version of Joomla, frozen at a buggy, obsolete version, with some arcane and pointless restrictions in place. It meant I could either hack their code (which worked, incidentally - their setup wasn't very secure) or re-write my (up-to-date) site back into the old version. This wasn't just nit-picking: the Joomla version they were running (and probably still run for all I know) was deprecated over a year ago. Full Joomla installations auto-update with security patches, bug fixes, etc. this was also disabled.

I had to apologise to the client for my poor advice. After discussion We've set up a web hosting package locally. It's secure; I know the server admins personally; it's hugely faster than the well-known one; it hasn't crashed once (the well known one emulated a yo-yo). And the servers are gosted in the UK, where my client wants to do business.

Yes it costs more, but he's happy and I'm relieved. I won't attempt to go down the 'cheap DIY' route again!

E.

 

[Louise-Paisley]

The idea that you need hosting on UK servers for speed is just a bit silly really

Nowt like selective quoting! :roll:

If it had just been about speed I would have said so, but going back to what I wrote

you want a UK host with servers in the UK. Having a UK host with servers in Dallas - isn't exactly going to be helpful with the speed of the connection, a US IP address, differing time windows."

I think you'll find having a US based IP address is not as "helpful" as you might think. :wink:

You may not use significant resources, can you say the same about the other 2,656 websites on the same server\IP as yours?

Dibs

I agree with what you are saying, but it is things that really don't affect joe blogs who is starting out with a quick simple website when starting up in business. Getting a dedicated server in uk data centres is a big financial cost, I am sure most startup business just do not have the funding to pay out 150 or 200 quid a month for that.

I am really at a loss as to why an IP resolving to a USA geolocation would be a problem, I don't recall ever doing a whois lookup before buying?

Really it just seems to be somewhat over the top to insist on uk servers etc for a startup business which is unlikely to be getting thousands of daily visits, it seems more like advice to an expanding business which is more online sales based rather than an information only webby.

 

[Dibs-h]

I agree with what you are saying, but it is things that really don't affect joe blogs who is starting out with a quick simple website when starting up in business. Getting a dedicated server in uk data centres is a big financial cost, I am sure most startup business just do not have the funding to pay out 150 or 200 quid a month for that.

I am really at a loss as to why an IP resolving to a USA geolocation would be a problem, I don't recall ever doing a whois lookup before buying?

Really it just seems to be somewhat over the top to insist on uk servers etc for a startup business which is unlikely to be getting thousands of daily visits, it seems more like advice to an expanding business which is more online sales based rather than an information only webby.

Over the top? How do you think Google.co.uk excludes Non-UK pages? Ever thought how many people when searching for something then click "Pages from the UK"? How do you think Non-UK pages are excluded? Ever wondered how clicking on "Pages from the UK" still returns ".com" domains? I didn't think so.

You have a non UK IP address - Geo locating out of Utah, where your shared server is hosting 2600+ other websites. If someone searches on whatever search times bring up your website and then clicks on "Pages from the UK" - my money is that your website has a high probability of disappearing from Google's Results. So would that be "over the top" for Joe Bloggs wanting to get work in the UK?

Obviously YMMV!

Dibs

p.s. No one mentioned dedicated servers or anything remotely close. Hosting provision like you have (in the US) can be bought just as cheaply in the UK, with UK IP addresses, etc.. with a company that has trading record, etc. where you might have some recourse if things go wrong as opposed to zip if abroad.

 

[Eric The Viking]

@Louise:

You can still have a shared server in the UK at reasonable cost - we do 'em, too - but you're right that it *is* more expensive than a one-man startup can usually afford.

That said, a US server is a last-resort for me, except in certain very specific circumstances, that have nothing to do with business use (politics!).

The aspect not really discussed so far is usage. For web-based businesses, it does matter where you host: where will the clients mostly be, what jurisdiction do you want to be in, how important are transatlantic links, etc. Unlike cellphone services, when demand increases it's a lot more expensive to put in a new link across the Atlantic than a few cell towers.

I've been doing internet-based work since 1993 (yikes!), and it's gone in phases: after a while the transatlantic pipe clogs up. There's a couple of years of poor connections, then a new fibre bundle comes on-stream and it's all good again... for a while. Moore's law (or the equivalent for traffic) means that demand always grows exponentially, and it does regularly exceed supply.

If your clients are in the USA, that's fine. If they're here, UK hosting is better.

E.

PS (later) And Dibs is right about search engines - we live or die by them these days. If you have a local business, and you want to be picked up by local searches, doing all the right SEO stuff matters, and so does a UK IP address, at least it seems so.

 

[Louise-Paisley]

I agree with what you are saying, but it is things that really don't affect joe blogs who is starting out with a quick simple website when starting up in business. Getting a dedicated server in uk data centres is a big financial cost, I am sure most startup business just do not have the funding to pay out 150 or 200 quid a month for that.

I am really at a loss as to why an IP resolving to a USA geolocation would be a problem, I don't recall ever doing a whois lookup before buying?

Really it just seems to be somewhat over the top to insist on uk servers etc for a startup business which is unlikely to be getting thousands of daily visits, it seems more like advice to an expanding business which is more online sales based rather than an information only webby.

Over the top? How do you think Google.co.uk excludes Non-UK pages? Ever thought how many people when searching for something then click "Pages from the UK"? How do you think Non-UK pages are excluded? Ever wondered how clicking on "Pages from the UK" still returns ".com" domains? I didn't think so.

You have a non UK IP address - Geo locating out of Utah, where your shared server is hosting 2600+ other websites. If someone searches on whatever search times bring up your website and then clicks on "Pages from the UK" - my money is that your website has a high probability of disappearing from Google's Results. So would that be "over the top" for Joe Bloggs wanting to get work in the UK?

Obviously YMMV!

Dibs

p.s. No one mentioned dedicated servers or anything remotely close. Hosting provision like you have (in the US) can be bought just as cheaply in the UK, with UK IP addresses, etc.. with a company that has trading record, etc. where you might have some recourse if things go wrong as opposed to zip if abroad.

Well my host is in the USA, with a google search I come up number 3 in page one.. If I select pages from the UK my result changes to number 3 on page 1 which is really not very much different is it? Do you really believe that the largest search engine on the planet is really using a geolcation system as basic as checking where the IP resolves to? That is a WELL outdated concept

As for something going wrong.. well once about 2 years ago my website was running slow (not the happy house cats one) and I phoned the host. I was speaking to an advisor within 3 minutes, I explained the problem and they said lets have a look and see what is happening.. He said one of the other accounts was running rogue scripts which was dragging the server down and that account was now suspended. I said well that's good but at the end of the day I am relying on this website for income and this is not really acceptable. Of course it is a problem with shared hosting as they said, but they said we will transfer your package onto a new server and so you should have no problems at all but if you do in the future then call us back and we will sort it out right away. It took them about 20 minutes to switch me onto a new server and to date I have had no further problems at all.

While I think it is entirely possible you can get hosting across the pond which does not offer this level of service, I very much doubt that every UK host will be nearly as good as my USA host. It all comes down to who you buy from not where you buy from, there are good and bad both sides of the pond. As for cost, yes UK hosting prices are coming down now, when I first got hosting I was using a UK service which was expensive and RUBBISH, I switched to the USA Bluehost after recommendations and cut the cost by over 75% and got a service which was infinitely better.

At the end of the day I maintain that the geolocation of the host is NOT nearly as important as you are making out, it clearly makes no difference to search results on google as I have checked searching with UK Pages only and still get the same results, and just because a host is across the pond does not mean that you get zero level of service from them. Pages on my site are served more than fast enough to not be a problem at all and I have seen UK hosted sites which serve slower as well as faster.

Really the only problem I have encountered from a US host is the time difference, the server and MYSQL server being set to mountain time means that orders placed in the UK have the wrong timestamp in customers order history, even this can be fixed fairly easily by changing the timezone in PHP and issuing a mysql query to change the mysql timezone into the mysql intit configuration but to be honest the benefits from doing it is not worth the hassle of actually doing it.. Then of course it is fairly unlikely that someone starting out doing joinery/ bespoke furniture etc is going to have an online shop taking direct payments and order processing so again this would not even be a consideration.

 

[loz]

Leaving the argument aside

adding to the advise - its often a good idea to use anon registration of your domain so that people cannot lookup your home address if you pee them off..............................

 

[Eric The Viking]

Really the only problem I have encountered from a US host is the time difference, the server and MYSQL server being set to mountain time means that orders placed in the UK have the wrong timestamp in customers order history, even this can be fixed fairly easily by changing the timezone in PHP and issuing a mysql query to change the mysql timezone into the mysql intit configuration but to be honest the benefits from doing it is not worth the hassle of actually doing it.

Surely it's using UTC and therefore the timestamp will be automatically adjusted?

Or is your PHP script converting it in situ? It's easy enough to add 7 hours...