There are millions of companies on the net who advertise themselves to be the perfect web company, but only few of them are REALLY proficient web hosting companies. In the world of advertising tactics and gimmicks, few good companies get overshadowed by the rest. There is no sure shot way to determine the perfect web hosting company, is it possible to find a good company ?

It all comes down to testimonials I believe and research. Do lots of research and pick 10 or so hosts and then ask around the forum for information that people know about these companies. Hopefully this will weed out the bad bunch from the good crowd.

Don't go for the cheapest, it takes a certain cost per Gb to break even, many offer silly unsustainable prices and oversell their servers to break even or they simply dissapear due to non-payment of their bills.

If you have a low visitor personal site, then this is perhaps worth the risk, if you make money or conduct business via your site, then you need to pay a bit more (but you'll make that back anyway).

Beware of testamonials unless you know the person, these are easy to fake

You might want to consider a less well known or local company, these tend to offer better service.

This is not a plug, but an example, we've been in business for best part of 15 years, we host a number of sites and have servers in the UK & USA, we have customers mainly from US/Canada, UK & mainland Europe, our servers very rarely have downtime (other than maintenance slots), we get no complaints, but you'll probably not find a single review of our services on-line. By the traditional method of host research that would make us a bad host, but our customers come back year on year because of the service

Good advice Alex! Cheap can cause big problems. Across other forums I have seen a majour incidence where overselling has caused many people to leave a certain company.

I wouldn't 100% trust testimonials, any site can easily fake them.

Hi,
Try to scan their websites, their web content, and their site layout.

Compare between the hosting company websites, their features, analyze their costs read their content and then decide which is the best hosting company.

Try to get the opinions of the hosting company you choose from various acquaintance, business associates, friends etc.

While searching for a good hosting company, look for a clean, uncluttered and organized website. Every information should be layered in user-friendly and easy interface.
Drop A Ticket: The web hosting company looks good and reasonably priced but what about their service, their response time ? If they respond fast with satisfactory solution, you have found a reliable web hosting company.

If vailable , go on a free trial: The final test which will determine the reliability of the hosting company.
Bandwidth problems: Some hosting companies support unlimited bandwidth, but for large amount don’t just go for unlimited, fix a bandwidth as per your need as to avoid conflict if any.
silvermoon

I agree that fixed bandwidth is essential. Unlimited sucks and does not exist. There are always get out clauses in the TOS for the host to cut off your account if resources are over used.

We are working on a system of rating hosts... thread can be found in the feed back forum. We think it will work well and are making plans now on what to include.

Hi, I joined this thread though it doesn't look very new, thanks for the tips, they are useful, but when it actually comes to choosing a hoster a newbie may have lots of problems that a more experienced person wouldn't have, before signing up, just looking at plans. I'm choosing a resellers package at the moment, I don't want it to be anything special, just Linux resellers plan with a Cpanel and some payment software, plus support from the first -level hoster (I think it would be better at the beginning, I'll feel more comfortable), plus I've decided to resell domains. I think I'll choose directi to resell from, but I can't decide on resellers hosting. ahosting.biz has been recommended to me, I can't say I particularly like or dislike them, I visited the reviewcenter, looked at their strong and weak points in reviews, but I don't know whether I can trust them completely. What would be the best thing to do here?

If you're not sure whether you can trust them, then you've answered your own question... Look for someone you can trust.

Smaller hosts (as long as they are not a school boy host ) are often better for startups as you generally get a more personal service. The bigger hosts tend to let you buy from the shopping list and are not flexible when you need something different.

Good points there Alex! I believe it's finding the inbetween point of a company that knows what they are doing but still see each client as valuable as any other and offer that flexibility needed.

I was unable to find such a host a few years back, so decided to put my years of sysadmin skill to use and add hosting as an additional offering to the business, not looked back since

Great way in to the market! If you have the skills then why not

Surely small companies take a better care of their clients than big ones because they don't have many and don't want to lose them at all.

Is ahosting.biz a small company? I s there at all a way to tell how big the company is?

I don't think that Ahosting.biz is a small web hosting company. They have two datacenters in Orlando and Charlotte and their Network Infrastructure is stable and powerful. Moreover, they offer different kinds of web hosting services (shared hosting, reselling, dedicated servers, domain registration, etc.) and they even have a community forum where you can get the answers your questions. .