# Netfirms Canada moving hosting to US location



## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

I just got an email from Netfirms saying they are moving the physical location of their hosting from Canada to US....Now this will be no big deal for most, however, if you are a Canadian company and want the best results in the "Canada Only" search results, having a Canadian IP number helps....

With this move, IP numbers will now be in the US range....So someone using the "Canada Only" method may no longer find you at the place in the results as before this move.....

This comment is based on my understanding of how the search engines work....Does anyone else think this or have other information that will be helpful?...


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## dent8n (Mar 2, 2011)

Yes, the data you store down in the States would also be governed under the rules of the new jurisdiction.


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## Dono (Apr 20, 2008)

It's more than that... Netfirms Canada has been sold to a US company, Endurance International Group.

From Netfirm's transition website: "To help us take that next step, one of the top web hosting and domain management teams in the industry has acquired the Netfirms hosting and domain business."

They have chosen rather confusing wording, because other than that line above, they make it sound like just the hosting is being done by someone else. Perhaps telling everyone that the Canadian company has been bought out by a US one would not go over well with their customers. I know I'm not very happy about it.


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

As soon as I saw the news, I thought sellout.....My concern is not the US owner but rather the US IP number.....As such, I have started to transition my sites to Canadian Web Hosting Despite all the assurances by Netfirms that the IP number means nothing, I am convinced otherwise.....


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## Dono (Apr 20, 2008)

I don't host with Netfirms, they are just my registrar. I use a Linode with a Newark, NJ server. The fact that it's a US IP doesn't mean anything, as Google does not analyze sites that way. Many many Canadian websites are hosted in the US because a lot of their traffic is based in the US and pricing is more competitve. If you really want people to be drawn to your domain, using .ca is 1000% more important than paying to host in Canada.

I really liked the way Netfirms domain manager worked and quite franky, their domain registration was the most realistically priced that supported .ca. If they make that less friendly or increase the cost of .ca, I'm likely to jump to another registrar, preferably Canadian. Unfortunately, we don't always have that much choice due to some registrars not supporting .ca or having crazy pricing as if it's an exotic domain.

Cheers,
...Donovan


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Dono do you have a source of some data the shows the Google Canada Index does not consider the IP number as part of the search algorithm ....I have done a lot of research and I keep coming back to the conclusion I have reached....


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## Dono (Apr 20, 2008)

If you're a .ca, obviously you're a Canadian site, and Google.ca (and other Google sites set to Canada results) will treat you as Canadian. 

If you're a .com, you will definitely want to go into Google Webmaster Tools and set your geographic location/target to Canada, to override your IP's location. (source)

I've been investigating this since you've got me thinking about it and I decided to see if I could get you some proof of this. I did a search on Google.ca for one unique word specific to a project I'm working on, and it brings up that project's Twitter.com (US company) account first, with my project's .ca domain as the second search result. All other search results appear under these two. Pretty nice.

When I click the option to restrict the search to "Pages in Canada", the Twitter entry goes away and my .ca site is now the #1 result. Nice! 

As I mentioned before, the site is hosted on my Linode in a huge data center in Newark, NJ. I don't think it can get any clearer than that. 

...Donovan


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## royster13 (Aug 14, 2007)

Thanks for the feed back.....I am already past the point of no return in my move to a Vancouver BC host......Based on all I had read, I was not prepared to take a chance.....I recall reading an article on HighRankings forum that was pretty sure .ca was first on all the "Canada Only" indexes but Google considered location of server 2nd....


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## Dono (Apr 20, 2008)

No worries. Netfirms wasn't really that good of a webhost, you are very likely better off with the Vancouver company anyway.


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## Dono (Apr 20, 2008)

I have just spent a few hours trying to deal with "Netfirms" and they are obviously not the same company anyone. 

I wanted to register some domains and the system required that I migrate my account before I could register new domains. 

Post registration, which you had to book a hours in advance, the system knew my American Express details but was unable to use them, saying "invalid card type." It then proceeds to ask you to supply credit card information, and VISA and Mastercard are the only two options on the list. 

After a support request went unanswered for several hours, I wasted a few more hours with no less than five live chat attempts trying to confirm with the company that Amex was or was not supported. If it was not, then I'd have to find another registrar.

The first guy kept telling me that I should contact my bank to see what was wrong with my card. He ended the conversation when I repeated that his system was the issue, since it didn't let me enter Amex information. I even pointed to their own support documentation, which said that only Visa & MC were supported if you weren't paying in USD.

As I'd been chatting with "Sales", I tried "Tech Support." The first one there, in response to my message that Amex did not appear to be supported (and the reason why) , sent a whole bunch of text at once after several minutes of nothing. It included a list of their supported payment types, with Amex in the list. They then ended the chat, after asking if I was still there, as if I had gone silent.

The next time I got the same guy again, and after asking me why I thought the system didn't support Amex, I said I'd create screenshots. He disconnected on me while I was doing this. 

The very last guy wanted me to fax my credit card information to them. When I said I had no fax, *he asked me to email all of my credit card information to him!*

When I told him that was an extremely dangerous thing to do, and told him to read up on it via a link I provided, he said I'd have to fax it if I couldn't email it. I thanked him for his time and let him go.

I rarely get mad, in fact, I can be extremely patient, but I was extremely mad at this point. 

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so hard to find a good alternative registrar, but obviously I have little choice. 

...Donovan


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