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11 Jun 2008
The hosting of UK government sites such Job Centre Plus and the Pension Service in the US is a slap in the face to UK businesses, according to search engine optimisation firm NetCallidus.
Routine research and analysis performed by the the company discovered a number of .gov.uk sites being hosted in Sunnyvale, California.
"At a time when the UK economy is teetering on the edge of a recession, this is an out and out insult," said Mark Furber, managing director of NetCallidus.
"There is no good reason why this work should be given to another country. It might save a few pounds, but sends the wrong message about how much the government cares about British business."
Furber believes that this socially irresponsible and that the work would be better done by a UK business anyway.
"We always advise our clients to host their websites in the country they are aiming at, as it is one of the factors that can influence search engines like Google."
"These sites are clearly aimed at UK people so should be hosted in the UK to ensure that the highest number of people find them."
Furber also highlighted issues around latency, security and management as reasons for governments to host public service sites within their own country.
The various departments were not immediately available for comment regarding this issue.
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Do you agree?
Either Save Money or Support British - Cant have it both ways
This is stupid. UK people moan that the goverment wastes money. Then they moan about not support British. You cant have it both ways, hosting in America is dirt cheap compared to hosting in the UK. I know, I'm paying triple the cost to have one of my dedicated servers in the UK instead of the US. So either decide, does the Goverment control out of control spending, or should they waste tax payers money supporting British? One or the other only.
Posted by: Andy Snook 11 Jun 2008
Slap in the face?
More like getting value for money for the tax payer. UK hosting is generally overpriced once you get beyond static web pages; simple stuff like PHP isn't so bad; once you add databases in, or try to find an MS hosting platform then the price rockets obscenely. And of course to get reliable hosting it's even worse. Then there's the general awful customer care from UK hosting firms as well. And personally I find it doubtful that the hosting location affects google rankings, given then gov.uk domain names. One wonders why an SEO firm is commenting on this in the first place; except for cheap publicity
Posted by: bd 11 Jun 2008
Data protection ?
If any of them hold personal data then under the data protection act the data is deemed exported to another country. Has the UK government justified exporting such data ? I suspect that it is breaking its own rules -- again.
Posted by: alain williams 11 Jun 2008