It is extremely important to test a web host before buying any package from it. Before you pay for the hosting service it is important for you to know whether the company can really help your business do well. Therefore, testing the hosting before buying the package, especially testing for the downtime is important.
To test for the downtime you can take the help of the online service. With this you can find the uptime statistics of various web hosts. Sometimes you would find statistics for many years. Another way of testing the downtime for web hosts is to download any free monitoring software in your desktop and then add the URL of the web hosts that you want to check and set interval time of one minute. Soon you will get the data. Now, you just need to compare the data and decide which one is the best and choose that web host.
Another test for web host is to go through the press and the blog reviews about those web hosts. If there are negative reviews then you should not go for such a web host. However, you need to search a lot for getting an honest website giving unbiased reviews.
A good test is to check the web hosting review sites which give awards to the best web hosts. You can choose any of those web hosts which have got award. But remember, even if a web host does not have an award it might not be a bad web host.
Price comparison and discount coupons are the other tests. When you are choosing any web hosting package then you need to look out for those which give you good bandwidth and storage space and that too at a price that suits your budget. Choose some web hosts which offer such packages and then make a choice. If you are getting coupons from a web host provider giving you discounts and free domain name then it should be in your list.