Select or Change a Website’s Data Center

We recommend choosing a data center that is located close to where the majority of your site’s visitors are. This server location can reduce round-trip time latency for domestic visitors, because the website data is physically closer closer, the site can load more quickly. This performance increase for visitors also helps improve SEO by creating a better user experience. The faster the site loads, the better your website SEO and the greater the opportunity to drive conversion.

However, sometimes data privacy laws require sites to be hosted in specific regions. Wherever needed, be sure to adhere to these laws if they apply for your content.


Google Cloud Servers

Below of are all Google data center locations that a WP Engine website can be hosted in. All shared hosting plans are created by default on Google Cloud servers in the region closest to your location at signup. Your website can be migrated to another region by Support request.

Many data center locations are available for Shared hosting plans, however some of the locations listed below may only be available with upgraded pricing. These are denoted with an asterisk (*).

RegionLocationRegion ID
North AmericaIowaus-central1
North AmericaSouth Carolinaus-east1
North AmericaOregonus-west1
North AmericaMontrealnorthamerica-northeast1
EuropeBelgiumeurope-west1
EuropeLondoneurope-west2
Europe*Frankfurt*europe-west3*
EuropeNetherlandseurope-west4
Asia/PacificTaiwanasia-east1
Asia/PacificTokyoasia-northeast1
Asia/PacificSydneyaustralia-southeast1

Amazon Web Servers (AWS)

AWS clustered servers are available only to Premium and Enterprise dedicated hosting plans.

RegionLocationRegion ID
North AmericaVirginiaus-east-1
North AmericaOhious-east-2
North AmericaOregonus-west-2
North AmericaMontrealca-central-1
EuropeIrelandeu-west-1
EuropeLondoneu-west-2
EuropeFrankfurteu-central-1
Asia/PacificSingaporeap-southeast-1
Asia/PacificSydneyap-southeast-2

NOTE: Certain data center providers and locations are only be available to select plans at varying prices – please contact your Account Manager if you have any questions.


Testing Locations

Before choosing a data center it may be a good idea to test out the various locations to determine general latency for your target users. The easiest way to test for latency is to utilize 3rd party tools designed specifically for these providers.

For Google data centers we recommend GCPping.
For AWS data centers you can use CloudPing.

Keep in mind that these tools will test latency for ALL available data centers from these providers. Make sure that you are focusing only on the locations listed above.


Locate Data Center

  1. Login to the User Portal
  2. Select Sites
  3. Click the name of the environment you wish to check the data center location of
  4. Be sure that Overview is selected
  5. Locate Region within Environment Stats

Select Data Center Location

The data center for your account will be selected when you create the first site on the account. Data Centers marked with an asterisk (*) may incur an additional fee due to limited availability.


Change Data Center Location

If you are an existing customer and want to change the location a site is hosted in, contact Support to put in a request.

Data Center changes require a physical migration of your website. This means the move will need to be scheduled to ensure it will not impact users active on the site.
Anytime we do a server change there is always a possibility of downtime, this is just the nature of a server move. However, we will do our best to have either no downtime or as little downtime as possible.

DNS will also need to be updated for any domains pointing to the website, as the server IP will change.
If you have setup CNAME flattening on your domain, no DNS changes will be needed.

If the primary environment on your account is moved, all subsequent environments will be created in the same new data center location.

NOTE: The location must also be available for your current plan type or upgrades/additional charges may be necessary.


NEXT STEP: What WP Engine monitors on your server

Still need help? Contact support!

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