Finding a good hosting plan is not an easy task. You got to think of: space, bandwidth, support, customer testimonial, domain price, contract, etc. Here is a quick guide on helping you to find your best hosting plan:

1. Hosting Forums
Search through hosting review & offers section. After found the hosting, found some customer review posted at the forums as well. Personal referral is useful as well.

2. Search Engine
google, yahoo, msn will list major hosting company on top 20 result. View them one by one. Select at least 5 hosting for comparison.

3. Search for deals/offers
Search for hosting coupons, or hosting offers from forums or search engine.

4. Post request on forums
If you still cant find a good hosting, post a request at the forums, and there will be experienced webmaster give you a couple recommendation. I usually will give recommendation based on my experience with various hosting.

Thanks for good tips.

Good tips. I personally think forums are great as you get the feedback of the clients themselves.

Good tips. But I think that it is not enough to get good and quality hosting.

good tips..

Forums a re good place to find review for a popular company. There are hundreds of good web hsts however that stay away from the lights and still provide good service. I always suggest anyone to find if the web host appears on the news.

It depends what you have in mind when you say that. I don't value press releases that much. Real news may be of some value at times, but generally, journalists will be careful what they say and how they say it.

Good tips, remember LIVE SUPPORT is a must. I'm a big believer in live support.

I am not a big fan of LIVE support. In my experience with few companies, live support, in most cases, has been quite useless, no matter which company I was with. A lot of times they would redirect you to their helpdesk, or simply not answer your questions right.

Simply put, I am a believer in good quality support that is fast and efficient. Whether it is live or not does not matter to me - as long as problems get solved fast.

I'm with Art on this one. Live support, with relatively few exceptions, will be level 1. Only simple issues and tasks can be handled by them. For serious matters, you're likely to be asked to put in a ticket.

Live support can also be great as a sales tool, answering presales questions and letting the customer know "someone is there" -- something for hosts to consider in this day and age when competition is so fierce and the cost of acquiring a customer can run so high, and sales closure rates can influence this decidedly.

In return, I am with you on this one. I think live sales is the best utilization of such web technology. I would love to get a sales response fast and efficiently without having to spend a lot of time searching for the answer on the site. Live sales works much better than live support.

In the Hosting Industry I wouldn't say Live Support is the best method of support.

However Pre sales is a great way; as both Art and ldcdc have posted. Once we launch we will only be offering Live Sales, following the successful peers such as ThePlanet (Before it officially merged with Ev1) and Softlayer.

And what's everybody's opinion of hosting review companies? Is it a good idea to use their free services?

Reviews are a great way, however always look for the indepth reviews. Short, Small Negative reviews shouldn't always be taken into account.

I completely agree with all of you Support and Services should definately be taken in to consideration while selecting a hosting company.....