* Local - the Web Servers are located within the borders of South Africa
              (Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban etc).

* International - the Web Servers are located in other countries like the UK, USA and Europe.

You may have been offered or have seen some good website hosting deals around.

You might be asking yourself "Why does the price of web hosting vary so much?"

You might be tempted to go for the cheapest deal?

BUT, there is always some sort of catch to a "brilliant deal"

The main difference in domain / web hosting pricing is due to where the physical Web Servers are located geographically. The cost of internet infrastructure and bandwidth is much lower abroad (UK, USA & Europe) than in South Africa. As a matter of fact, South Africa ranks as one of the most expensive countries in the world for telecommunications and internet costs.

There is nothing much we can do about it except by making informed decisions and to manage our costs the best we can. The good news is that broadband internet costs are coming down slowly but surely in South Africa due to more competition in the market place and improved internet infrastructure.

At 21 Digital Web Solutions, we believe in serving South African based businesses with the best web hosting environment, the reason why all of our clients domains are hosted locally in South Africa.

Some other reasons why we prefer hosting in South Africa are:

• - Faster Website Access
  
  
• - Local Technical Support in South African Time Zone
  
  
• - Greater % local internet network up time, especially when one of SA's
     international internet links break.
  
  
• - Better geographic location improves geographical SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Local (SA)			International
Pro's	Con's		Pro's	Con's
Faster website access	More Expensive		Cheaper Web Hosting	Slower website access
Expansive local internet infrastructure	Network infrastructure mostly provided by Telkom & IS		More resources, better value	Few international internet links from South Africa, when they fail, Email & Websites are affected.
Local Technical Support				Technical Support queries are sometimes slow due to different time zones.
Phone Email Support				Only Email or "live chat" Support
Quicker response & problem solving				Slower respone and language barrier issues when hosting in Europian or other countries.
Geographic hosting location improves search engine results for domains hosted locally. This depends on your target market.				Geographic hosting location can have a negative impact on search engine results.