Hosting

Every website has to "live" somewhere — on a server that delivers it around the clock whenever someone visits. That place is the hosting. Where it sits determines speed, reliability and whose law applies to your data.

Your data stays in the EU and the page is delivered by a global network — which is why it loads quickly everywhere. Your data belongs to you, you can take it with you at any time, and every service provider is named in the privacy policy. A server exclusively in Germany is available on request.

An example: a property management firm wonders why its website often loads sluggishly and is occasionally unreachable altogether. On enquiry it turns out: nobody in the company knows where the site actually lives. The contract runs through an agency that no longer exists, the invoice comes from a provider nobody recognises, and access credentials exist nowhere. When an update becomes necessary, a weeks-long search for their own server begins.

The server's location is more than a technical footnote. If personal data — say, from your contact form — sits on servers outside the EU, additional requirements under the General Data Protection Regulation apply, and the party responsible is you as the business, even if a service provider handles the hosting. A server location within the EU makes many things simpler and is the most straightforward choice for most businesses. So do not ask only about the price — ask first about the location.

How to tell that you should take a look at your hosting: you do not know where your website and your data are located and who has access to them. Your privacy policy does not name the service providers involved — or you do not know whether it does. The site loads noticeably slowly, especially on a phone. Or, in an emergency, you could not name anyone who would deal with it.

You can clear this up with four questions to your service provider, no technical knowledge required: where exactly are the website and the data located — in which country? Who operates the server and who has access? Are there regular backups, and has restoring them ever been rehearsed? And: whose name is the contract in — yours or the provider's? The answers belong in writing, in your records.

A common misunderstanding: that hosting is the same everywhere and purely a question of price. In fact providers differ considerably — in server location and hence the applicable law, in speed, backups and reachability when something goes wrong. The price difference between decent and poor hosting is usually small compared with what an outage or data loss costs.

At Conexa Digital your data stays in the EU, while the site itself is delivered by a worldwide network — which is why it loads quickly everywhere. Your data belongs to you and can be taken with you at any time, every service provider involved is named in the privacy policy, and a server located exclusively in Germany is available on request.