The world is becoming smaller every day thanks to the Internet, which is working to bring people together and reach out to a global audience.
For some, there comes a time when they'll need to consider globalizing their Web businesses, which means finding a hosting provider in the region(s) they're focusing on. Hosting on nearby servers improves the speed of data transfers (e.g. reliability and performance) and ranking on local search engines that may look at IP addresses and domain extensions. The trick is discovering the right hosting partner in that area.
So, where should you turn if you're looking to internationalize your digital business? In this edition of Website Magazine's Web Hosting Panel, let's look at four major geographic regions, including India, China, Russia and Brazil, and some leading providers in each area.
India is the world's second most populated country with more than 1 billion citizens and a growing technology industry, particularly in telecommunications and IT. Thus, it's quickly becoming imperative that Web businesses consider expanding their operations into India, and there are a number of hosting providers that can help them do that.
This includes ZNetLive, one of the country's four largest hosting providers, which offers shared, dedicated, reseller and VPS hosting, as well as domain registration and SSL certificates. BigRock is another that provides specialized hosting for ecommerce sites and sites that run on WordPress or other content management systems (Drupal, Joomla, etc.). It also has a DIY website builder tool for its customers, such as Adidas, Warner Brothers and Fiat. India is also home to eWebGuru, which is more than 5,000 customers strong and offers Linux and Windows hosting and reseller hosting, as well as cloud hosting, VPS hosting, Web design and SEO services.
As a global and economic powerhouse, China is a major player on the Web. Businesses can plant their feet in the country's virtual soil with hosting providers like HiChina, which has 18 branches throughout the country and offers both Chinese and English domain names, in addition to shared, dedicated, cloud and mail hosting. Or they could look at SinoHosting with its VPS, dedicated and co-location servers that host notable names like PayPal.
Russia has a long, rich history of being a big deal. Its largest accredited domain name registrar and hosting service provider is Reg.ru, which supplies customers with domains, dedicated and VPS hosting, SSL certificates and site development tools. Only in business since 2006, Reg.ru has already registered one-third of the domain names in Russia.
The country is also home to Masterhost, a company offering domain registration and website, mail and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) hosting, as well as payment services. Customers can choose between shared and VPS hosting for both Unix and Windows. Masterhost has been in business since 1999 and its datacenters support 140,000-plus websites for more than 68,000 customers, including Microsoft.
Brazil is one of the world's fastest growing economies. Of course, this means that many companies may want, or need, to consider taking their Web business to South America in the near future. To do this, they could use HostDime's Brazilian servers, which are backed by the brand's services, including shared, reseller, dedicated and VPS hosting packages, SSL certificates, domain registrations and cPanel licenses.
For more of a local flair, businesses could check out RedeHost or Locaweb, two companies based in Brazil that each offer domain registration, cloud hosting and email services.
Sooner than later, the Internet will ensure that running an international business will no longer just be the domain of enterprises. And while the average mom-andpop company may not worry about global expansion, for many businesses in between, it may very well become a reality. More than likely, these four countries, and a handful of others (e.g. the U.K., Japan, Canada, Germany and more), will be among the most important when it comes to globalizing a Web business. Fortunately, there are great hosting companies in these nations that can help brands comfortably migrate to new locations.