Even though my uplink is quite lousy (384Kbps), I haven’t actually had any problem with it, even when I was Dugg / Redditted / Shoutwired / del.icio.used / whatever.

However, I’ve long wondered about whether the fact that my server is located in Portugal is harming me in terms of search engine results for my English-language sites. The fact is that I get a comparatively large number of people arriving there from google.pt, even when the site in question is in English. Now, if google.pt is benefiting my English-language sites simply because they’re physically located in Portugal, it stands to reason that google.com (which is several orders of magnitude more important) will benefit US-based sites… and, if it puts those ahead, it follows that others are put behind.

(Did I make any sense just now? )

Therefore, since a few minutes ago, I’m a customer of Slicehost. In just 2 minutes, I had an Ubuntu virtual server running, with full root access by ssh. There’s nothing running there right now, but soon there will be: I will be moving one of my blogs, Way of the Mind, there (and it’ll be getting a new domain as well). I’ll only do it about a month from now… but I may start other sites there, in the meantime.

We’ll see if it makes a difference. I’ll post my results here.

Related posts:

1. A little experiment…
2. Blogging tips 1.5: Your blog’s language
3. The Portuguese and the Web