Canadian Web Hosting

What Is Canadian Web Hosting?

Canadian web hosting refers to web host services with data centers, or at least company offices, in the country of Canada. Since web hosting is often combined with domain name registration, it is interesting to note that according to the ICANN list of accredited registrars for generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs, like .com, .info, .net, and .org), there were 152 accredited registrars in Canada in March 2011. However, most of these do not have Canada in their name. And of the six accredited registrars that do have Canada in their business names, two are actually not Canadian, but based in the United States and the other four use DBA's, none of which include the word Canada.

For ccTLDs (country-code Top-Level Domains) for Canada (.ca), the sponsoring authority is the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) in Ottawa, Ontario. The CIRA website is at the following URL: http://www.cira.ca/ and is available in both English and French. As the agency responsible for certification of .ca domain names, CIRA has certified more than 150 registrars, most of whom provide other Internet services to their customers as well as domain name registration. CIRA is encouraging more organizations to become .ca registrars. CIRA provides a list of their certified registrars can be found at the following address: https://services.cira.ca/agree/rarList/list.action?request_locale=en_CA These companies have Canada or .ca in their names more often than the accredited gTLD registrars. Tucows, a prominent domain name wholesaler with over 5000 resellers, is a Canadian company and a certified .ca registrar. It is possible to register Canadian domain names through two hosting companies in the United States that are Tucows resellers.

Why You Might Seek Canadian Web Hosting

Like US web hosts, Canadian web hosts offer inexpensive shared hosting plans with unlimited (they may say unmetered) bandwidth and disk storage, as well as unlimited email accounts, MySQL databases, and domains, free website builder, and anytime money-back guarantee. They also offer VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting and dedicated server hosting, as you'd expect, with various levels having different CPU, amounts of memory, and drives. They provide services such as web development, SSL certificates, PCI compliance, etc.

Canadian web hosting might be a good choice for you for all of the usual reasons you'd choose a quality web host:

• good prices

• excellent service

• solid reputation

But you might also choose a Canadian web host to extend your business into Canada with a Canadian ccTLD and your choice of hosts combining to signal to customers that your business takes having a Canadian identity seriously. Or, you might decide to choose Canadian web hosting so you can pay for the service in Canadian dollars. If your business has roots in the US and Canada, you might also decide to use a company that provides service to both US and Canadian citizens.

Sources

http://www.icann.org/en/registrars/accredited-list.html