A site for visitors in Saudi Arabia, the UAE or elsewhere in the Gulf does not have to be hosted there, but where it is hosted changes three things: speed, cost and, for some data, the law.
Distance and the first delay
Every new connection waits for at least one round trip to the server before the first byte arrives. From the Gulf to a data centre in Germany that round trip is roughly 90 to 125 ms by distance; to a server inside the region it is much less. Measure your own connection rather than trusting a figure: the speed test does that.
What takes most of the distance away
- Caching pages, so the server answers without building them again.
- Compressing text and serving images in modern formats at the size they are shown.
- Keeping connections open over HTTP/2, so one round trip carries many files.
- Serving static files from a CDN with points of presence in the region.
When the data must stay in the country
Some rules require certain data, often government data and data in some regulated sectors, to stay inside the country. If that applies to yours, the host has to be local whatever its speed, so check before choosing a host abroad.
Prices and payment
A host that prices in your currency saves a conversion at every renewal. Check which currency you are charged in, not only which one is displayed, and whether the cards you use are accepted.
