After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
VPS, shared or dedicated hosting?
-
Hello,
I would love it if anyone could advise whether to use VPS, shared or dedicated hosting to host 50 WordPress sites and around 50 other one page flat HTML sites ... with everything being served via CloudFlare.
Of course my main concerns are page load times, security etc.
I know it's a big question, but I would be very appreciative of the thoughts people have, and any recommendations.
Kind regards,
Mark -
Hi, you helped me by pointing me to dedicated hosting, I hadn't considered it before, thank you!
-
It depends on some criteria, what kind of Webhosting you need. Well, First of all, I would suggest you avoid shared hosting plan. Then you can use VPS and Dedicated. Dedicated hosting would be the best. Thanks
-
You can use any shred housed for your small content-based website. I'm using shared hosting, and you can see the website page working well.
-
Hi Richard,
Hey thank you very much for the fast and helpful reply!
To me it makes sense to host close to where your main customer base is, even with a CDN, even if there are posts which say that specifying the geo in Google Search Console / Webmaster Tools pretty much overrides the hosting location in terms of location context (or ... "mainly"):
https://moz.com/community/q/what-happens-with-seo-when-a-site-is-served-via-cloudflare-cfnGiven things are so hyper-competitive, to me it makes sense to incorporate every miniscule refinement where they all add up over time, in other words set up hosting closest to the customer base.
It seems that perhaps a VPS plan hosted in the US is probably the most sensible option at the moment, as I have sites that are specific to 7 countries but they use ccTLD ... and the rest of the 141 sites or so that I am running are for global targeting, but probably 40% of the traffic would come from US, 30% from Europe. I guess I could create 2 VPS plans and host one in Europe but for now it seems perhaps not worth the effort and expense.
What are your thoughts on the article above?
Best regards,
Mark -
1. Avoid shared hosting (Often very limited resources)
2. I would definitely look at beefy VPS, they are very cost-effective. (Make sure you get a managed solution)
3. Dedicated servers are good, but very expensive.
Aim to hosting the country you want to serve (Yes even though you using a CDN)
As a final note before moving everything over, migrate one of the biggest sites and test thoroughly for performance before moving the rest. When you are migrating and for a few weeks afterwards keep your old service up and running so you can quickly change back to the old location if you have any issues.
Also backup, backup, backup. Everything and at every stage (From bitter experience)

Hope it helps, these suggestions from personal experience.
Regards
Richard
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Explore more categories
-
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
-