I get a fair few inquiries asking whether Blue Llama provides web hosting here in Jersey. The answer is “no”. Our hosting is based either in the UK or US. The reason for this is:
1. The quality of the hosting is better with higher specification servers and network infrastructure.
2. The service these companies provide is superior with 24 hour support, near 100% uptime and sophisticated monitoring systems.
3. The costs are much lower. We use big providers with huge warehouses of optimised servers. Because of economies of scale they can offer hosting at much lower prices.
From an search engine optimisation (SEO) perspective there is an very slight advantage in hosting your website in the country in which your targeted customers live. However, my belief is there would be no advantage in having a Jersey based server even if you were purely targeting Jersey residents. In fact, personally, I would steer clear of this if my experiences with .JE domains are anything to go with. Many people here in the Channel Islands use Google.CO.UK, and this localised version of the Google search family does not recognise .JE domains as being in the UK.
There are of course legal reasons for having your hosting based in Jersey. For some regulated companies, they must store their customer records in the islands and if these are made available via the web then that will include theire web server.
If you are still interested in hosting your web site in the island then a quick Google search reveals these guys as potential providers:
If you have had any experience of these hosting services or any others based in the Channel Islands then please share your experiences in the comments below.
