Choosing a website host which is right for you can be a tricky task. Plus everyone's expectations and requirements are different. This post will look at some of the factors you may wish to consider. A good place to go to look for hosts is a fully independent message board, such as this one.

It is important to realise that whilst some hosts seem to have amazing offers, it's very rare (if not impossible) for a host to offer high quality service and lots of disk-space and bandwidth, all at a low price. Whilst there is a lot of choice out there for consumers, try and remember that there is a trade-off when looking for a host.

An old hosting saying – which I quite like – goes like this:

When looking for a host, you have a choice:

High Quality Service

Lots of Disk-Space and Bandwidth

Low Price

You can only choose two.

More then welcome to add to this list of things to look for!

Thanks.

Since there are a lot of competitions in the hosting industry, even the experienced providers come with low prices where you can certainly find quality of service as well as huge disk space and bandwidth.

There are limits though.

I agree, a good host with their own in-house support can offer a lot of resources at a reasonable price but then you get to the point of "too good to be true".

If a host is offering monster servers with huge amounts of bandwidth at cheap prices they are probably cheap or rebuilt machines (less dependable) and they are using the cheapest bandwidth.
Likewise with VPS if the deal is "too good to be true" they are probably cramming way too many VPS plans on a single box or putting VPS on a Celeron server or some other crazy thing.

Shared hosting is easier to come by plenty of resources for reasonable price & good support because today's servers will handle hundreds of shared sites without straining (when you get to dual Quad or Six core CPU's -8 or 12 cores and 64GB or so of RAM you can handle a LOT of shared accounts.)

But there is a GLUT of servers out there these days and LOTS of people thinking they can jump in to hosting with no knowledge of how to manage a VPS much less a dedicated. Now if a customer sees a sharp web site and it's a host like this who isn't really sure what they are doing and is getting a super-cheap server from a non-managed host because he bought a book on "running your own web server" your site may be hacked, the server crash or who knows.

So kind-of agreeing with both the above you can get a lot for a reasonable price due to the extreme competition these days. But check out the company-how long they have been in business, do they have their own support 24/7365 phone/chat or ticket or do they "outsource to the guy on the commercial named "Peggy"

Is it a reseller or does the company have their own servers and if so which datacenter (there are "bargain basement datacenters too)

Simple really; do your homework. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Submit a support call or chat or ticket and see how long before a real person answers you (don't count the auto-responder letting you know they got your ticket). Ask if they handle their own support, and if they really are there at 3am on New Years morning if you need them?

There's plenty of good hosts with their own live support staff on duty 24/7/365 and with reasonable offers, plans and services.

(not too good to be true like "Use us-$2 a month for 1500GB Disk and 10,000GB transfer-host unlimited domains and get rich by next month guaranteed")

So both the above are a bit right and a bit wrong...just connect the right "bits...or was that bytes?...

I like this ... it has a catchy ring to it ... for marketing. But it's not necessarily true. There are plenty of providers out there that have doing this for years and can provide all three.

I would have to agree with this quote. It is very hard to find a web hosting companies these days that has all three. I but to name a few I have seen, 1and1, HostGator, Superb, and Green Geeks seem to have all three.

Here is one more thing when looking for a hosting company you should look at their reviews.

Hi,

I agree but with big host such as Hostgator is they limit other things like mysql and stuff and then the client finds that out and needs to be upgraded or he going to move else where.

If a user does not require lots of disk space or bandwidth, he may be better off on a smaller plan. Not only may it be cheaper but there is also less of a chance that that hosting provider's servers are overloaded

I aggree. Better on a lower package than on the big one if he does not need it

Disk space and Bandwidth have reached a point that they are no longer a real impact item in the bottom line cost of hosting for providers.

The greater issue is how you want your client to use the resorces you have given them as part of your offer.

Mysql databases are far more resource intensive (and the larger the database the worse it is) than any real "disc use" by uploads and updates.

Add-on domains are another issue, since allowances have become so generous seems like everyone has a "guy" that basically turns the hosting account into a small reseller account but controls Control Panel Access. So a hosting company should consider how many "friends" they want to host above and beyond the primary domain holder per package.

E-mail (using server for bulk mailing, even if it is to a "clean" list) can cause a huge spike in resources in partucular as they keep trying to deliver over and over to bad mailboxes. and then their are the spam complaints that are inevitiable with any bulk mailing and take time and effort to clear.

And lastly tech support is a huge cost factor, it needs to be factored into the cost and in most cases is the primary cost vs revenue consideration.

So to me it is no surprise that hosting companies are offering very large allowances of bandwidth and disk space for very little money since that is not real cost factors. I would look more carefully at the companies allowances for those processes that strain the far more finite resources of CPU and Memory and throughput. And how they balance and monitor (and control, either through softwares or TOS restrictions or both) resource usage on their servers. Do not look at it as a bad thing that they have restrictions and additional cost for more resource intensive sites, this tells you the company is clearly looking to be sure that they can handle and still be profitable with any mix of customers on their servers since those that use greater resources will face highher cost for their usage.

This is a smart company that has a long term plan to be there when you need them.

Lastly, companies that just allow unlimited everything may look good now and we all know the feeling that "you got a GREAT deal" becaiuse you didn't have to pay extra for your monster site. But you need to be realistic...you are not the only one that will try to sneak by with this great deal and that company will get a larger share of customers like you and will have less revenue resources to handle it.

I would like to add you ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS get what you pay for ... or not and that is the guarenteed 3rd rule.

Choosing a commercial web host:
Reliability and speed of access
Data transfer
Disk space
Technical support
FTP, PHP, Perl, SSI, .htaccess,, SSH, MySQL,
SSL (secure server), Shopping Cart
Multiple Domain Hosting and Subdomains
Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans
Price
Server

First at all ask for an uptime report.... if the hosting company wants to share it.

I can say that there are a lot of companies that are ready to provide all three
and it will be good reliable hosts with high stability. Nowadays when choosing a good host among well-known I'll look at price at first

I must say that I don't agree with this. It's true in the USA or UK but not Germany. I know a lot of hoster with a very good quality (uptime/support), diskspace & bandwith and low price.

You can find providers with all of your options Fe-Michael However i would take High Quality Service and low price ;p

Also revise how available they are to resolve the issues, uptime and compare with others hosting services providers.