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If you are wondering what hosting to choose for a business aimed at the German market, you can find some valuable tips in this post.
Starting a local or an international website with a target audience in Germany? There are a few different approaches to consider and implement when doing so.
Smart Tips to Help Choose the Best German Hosting Provider for a Local Business
We at HTH.guide are providing you with several beneficial recommendations to follow when choosing the best German Hosting Provider offer for your website and local business.
Choosing the right location
The first tip follows logic. Look for a server or a data center which is located in Germany or as close as possible to Germany. The location is crucial for the targeted local audience, as it will ensure speed and reliability. In addition, it could very well improve the SEO of your website.
Follow local currency and legal regulations
Each country has its specific laws and regulations, and you should get to know the ones in Germany. One prime example is the so-called Impressum. As explained by Ionos, if you plan to establish an online business presence in Germany, you must adhere to the Impressum law.
The Impressum law states the following:
Website owners who choose to ignore these legal requirements face fines of up to €50,000 ($54,000). In addition, the law requires the commercial intention of a website to be clearly labeled as such. That means when you conduct business via your website, you must include your company address and legal entity in the imprint. Any breach thereof can be fined up to €50,000 ($54,000). You may also receive an official warning if you fail to include the relevant details in your imprint. This could incur legal costs and fines.
Perhaps you are wondering what Impressum is? Impressum stands for imprint in the hereby context and generally translated as such. Yes, it does not have a direct relation to the hosting provider per se, but it is an example of a legal regulation specific only to Germany.
In essence, it is a type of notice that must be put on the website to give visitors a basic legal outline related to the law. In case you are planning to operate a digital business in Germany, you should include the following information in the Impressum (or imprint) of your website:
- Precise name of the website owner or legal entity behind the web presence
- Commercial address if such is present
- Contact information including email and telephone numbers
- German trade register number or foreign equivalent
- VAT identification number or business identification number
- Job or trade-related information
- Information on the board of directors (in case regulatory authorization is required)
You have precise instructions on what to do about that law and should follow them if you want to have a smooth experience when running your online business in Germany.
Have 24/7 Support as an option
If you are not situated in Germany, you should look for a 24/7 support availability in a hosting plan. Beyond a doubt, you will be dealing with time zone differences, and your hosting provider should offer 24/7 Support as an option so that any unexpected issues to be handled in a timely manner.
Check out local user reviews
You should be closely monitoring reviews written by local customers. In that way you will make certain that you are acquainted with the variations in client experiences as well as the what the actual uptime percentage is.
More things to consider
Inspect the German hosting provider in a greater depth and see if there are any additional details you should know about.
- Are you going to get a free domain name?
- Is the hosting provider capable of handling sudden website traffic spikes?
These questions as well as other ones need to be answered clearly when choosing a hosting in Germany.
You should search for any promotions available so that you get the best prices possible. German hosting providers run limited or exclusive promotions, so keep an eye on those.
Best Web Hosting Providers in Germany – TOP 3
Here we will provide the Top 3 Best Hosting Companies for the market in Germany, that tick all required boxes, according to our research. This will surely help you in choosing the Best German hosting provider for your local business.
Hostinger
Hostinger exists as a host company since the year 2004. Being a cutting-edge web hosting provider with over a decade of experience, Hostinger has reached 29 million users.
Hostinger is a very reliable company. It has affordable hosting options and provides many practical features to make its customers have the options they need with the services they pay for.
Hostinger offers an easy-to-use interface to its customers to provide the best experience in the website creation sphere. You can easily manage your website and track log-ins, update billing information, and monitor emails quickly from your admin dashboard.
Speed and Performance
If you are wondering about the company’s connection and reliability to Germany, then do not worry about your website speed. Hostinger has one of the best speeds on the WordPress Hosting market.
Hostinger has also implemented the Cloudflare CDN technology for maximum bandwidth and uptime provision.
Support and Security
Hostinger offers standard security measure such as a Free SSL certificate, a Managed WordPress solution, as well as GIT Access inclusion.
One of the best features that is included with each plan of Hostinger is the Cloudflare Protected Nameservers for defending from DDoS attacks and Spam messages. Other Security features include DNS Management and Access Manager.
Hostinger prides itself with the great Support Teams they have readily available, 24/7 all year long.
Prices and Available Plan Features
When it comes to affordable hosting services, Hostinger is one of the leaders in that regard. Hostinger can supply you with a wide variety of hosting solutions such as Managed WordPress Hosting, Shared, Cloud, VPS, and Minecraft Hosting at reasonable prices.
In terms of pricing, Hostinger is offering astonishing price plans within 80% OFF the regular price with a Free Domain and Free SSL Certificate.
Features available for Hostinger Plans:
- Free SSL Certificate
- Cloudflare Nameservers for DDoS Protection
- DNS Management
- Free Email
- Free Domain
- 24/7/365 Support
Hostinger has a 30-Day Money-back Guarantee policy that is being honored, regardless of the additional circumstances.
Hostinger Pros
- Free WordPress Website Migration.
- Light Speed Server Conection
- Additional Protection (from many types of attacks)
Hostinger Cons
- Control Panel is not traditional.
- Nonstandard Payment Terms.
Apart from a few cons that new users will need a bit of time getting used to (compared to other host firms), Hostinger does really well as a hosting solution for Germany.
A2 Hosting
A2 was made back in 1999 in the United States . Being an international firm, A2 Hosting is managing to provide reliable solutions for web hosting in Germany.
A2 Hosting has cloud services as well as powerful servers for internet sites that are intended for business use.
A2 Hosting has established itself as a respectable global firm, which sustains dependable connections around the world, including fast web hosting in Germany.
Speed and Performance
A2 has data facilities that are located in the United States and Singapore, while the closest data center to Germany is located in Amsterdam. To have the most optimized and speedy performance they have their services available with recent Linux and Windows distributions.
A2 gives assurance for a 99.9% uptime, which maintains good speeds and provides good caching and loading times. To add, A2 Hosting has its German Hosting provided with 20X Turbo Speeds.
A2 utilizes SSD disk drives, which reflects to great loading rates. In addition servers are redundancy-proof, meaning when a server goes down, another takes its places immediately in order to not lose speeds. Thus, servers are never jammed, nor delayed, providing constant reliability and fast speeds.
Support and Security
Regarding assistance, the company uses 24/7 coverage with Support teams being available by means of several various methods, including telephone and e-mail messaging.
The company has support in German, which is extremely essential and they depend on a ticket system to address issues for no more than 10 minutes which is more than reliable.
The latest security protocols and measures are applied by A2 Hosting using up-to-date technologies. Recovery options on the server-level technology are WAF guidelines for vulnerability patching, scanning for malware (HackSpan security), and Let’s Encrypt available as options.
Prices and Available Plan Features
A2 Hosting has plans focused on the most popular CMS platform, WordPress. With Free SSL solutions, readily available SSH access and SSD disks at your disposal. A2 Hosting offers both shared and managed plans. Their managed WP solutions have endless hard drive space.
A2 Hosting does Migration of your website free of charge. Other offered features in A2 WordPress plans include the following:
- Unlimited SSD Space & Transfer
- Free and Easy Site Migration
- Free Automatic Backups
- Speed Optimized WordPress
- 99.9% Uptime Commitment
- 24/7/365 Guru Crew Support
- Free SSL Certificate
Money Back Guarantee is the cherry on top of plan features, and A2 Hosting gives it to every customer.
A2 Hosting Pros
- Free website transfer.
- SSL security certificate included with all hosting plans.
- Low-cost for quality service.
- Unlimited data transfer and storage space.
A2 Hosting Cons
- Do not have a Free domain included with plans.
- Most affordable price starts with a 24-month contract.
A2 Hosting guarantees high speeds and promised security, especially with the 20 times Turbo Boost technology available for clients in Germany. Thus, it is a solid choice for you to choose as your German host provider.
IONOS Hosting
Ionos is a German hosting firm that was founded in Montabaur thirty years ago, but keeps expanding to this day.
The company uses mobile services, domain name enrollment in addition to local German web hosting. 10 more countries are included in the coverage of Ionos services. Ionos is identified as a very affordable and dependable hosting company by most of its customers.
1&1 should certainly get on your list if you are trying to sign up with a Top web hosting provider in Germany. A report shows that the company is one of the best hosting providers for Germany in April 2020. They currently host greater than 19 million domain names.
Speed and Performance
1&1 has seven data centers situated in Europe including ones in Frankfurt and Berlin. The speed of their web hosting service with those data centers is fast and rivals the speed of the competition.
If you want your website to run smoothly and without any lag, to load pages faster without any downtime, then Ionos is the right hosting for you.
With Ionos 1&1, the page loading speed is 1.9 sec which is a really good time. They provide an average uptime of 99.98% which is higher than the world average of 99.93%.
Support and Security
The technological Support available with 1&1 is knowledgeable and as well as fast-responding. Support is available in German.
We should note that pre-payment and paying for a longer plan period could take a bit of time for Sales support to answer.
Ionos 1&1 takes safety and security seriously and also considers it of utmost significance as self-improvement. The features they offer to their clients are SiteLock, day-to-day backups, Content Delivery Network, SSL certification and more.
Prices and Available Plan Features
Ionos is one of the most affordable web hosting providers in the marketplace. They offer Linux and Windows Operating System web hosting services for a reasonably cheap price.
WordPress conventional features such as automatic installation and auto-updates, and monitoring and renewing essential plugin versions come with a bit of an extra price, but it is worth the additional cost.
Ionos use a very attractive offer for the first year for their basic host plans. Afterward the renewal prices increase exponentially and you should check them out before signing a contract, although they are pretty standard for the included services.
Ionos Pros
- Good efficiency in Germany.
- Extremely impressive costs.
- More than enough storage room for budget plans.
- Very instinctive and easy-to-use control panel.
- Great local transfer speed.
- Prompt Customer Support.
- Website home builder for mobile phones is available.
Ionos Cons
- Upselling is present on the official website
- They do not offer Allow’s Encrypt, so this imposes an extra price for customers who want it.
- Their web servers are not utilizing the most recent software application versions.
- WordPress, themes, and also plugin updates are not included in the default package, but offered at an extra price.
- Site builder is supplied at an extra expense.
Summary and Conclusive Tips
- 1) Research local Web hosting in Germany and write down those that provide all features you want for your site hosting.
- 2) Follow local reviews, ratings, statistics (including uptimes), and all officially reported data for various providers to gain a better understanding of the differences between them.
- 3) Choose the best option regarding cost, available Support, and any additional perks provided.
When you eventually choose your German hosting provider, seek assistance from the related articles we have written – changing DNS settings, uploading and indexing your WordPress website, and connecting an FTP program. And keep in mind that the initial setting for the arrangement of your files is most likely included in the package you are going to pay for.