1. Popular web host should be used.
Cheap web host can be an uncommitted reseller. Once someone used a very cheap and helpful web host, his site went ‘missing’. But fortunately he was able to contact the owner and was able to make a backup, before the service was closed down. Later he found that he had only 5 customers. So one should use a popular web host and try to avoid those web hosts who try to attract customers by reducing rates to silly levels.
2. Judging popularity by Google Page Rank.
If one’s site is a serious one, he/she should put it on a serious host. Web hosting does not cost much these days. People are ready to pay an extra $5 a month. They are ready to pay $500 when his/her site goes skew-whiff, and he/she is not able to get a reply from their technical support.
3. Technical Support.
Technical Support is as important as any other features of web hosts it’s not worth having a Virtual Private Server for $8-$10.00 a month if there’s no one to answer ones emails when the hard disk fails.
4. Response time.
Check how long they take to give a reply by sending them an email or two.
Sending an email can be very helpful. As if they take more than two days to get back to a probable customer, how long do they take to answer their existing customers?
5. Investigating forums.
Investigate their forums; how busy are they? Do they have a forum?
To run a forum, they should have enough customers, and care enough to have one. By reading, one can have an idea as to what their support is like. Similarly, observe when they had the last news update on their site. If it was long ago, they might be on their last legs.
6. Unconfirmed report
On Webmaster forums, Webmasters always ask about web hosts. Find out and note down whom? Is getting the most votes. Some hosts spam the search engines. One will get puff pages, if one does a search on ‘the best web hosts’ or ‘top 10 web hosts’. Latest views from professional webmasters are the best.
7. Features.
UNIX is being favored by most geeks. It’s been around longer, and is more stable. Unix variants like Linux, offered by web hosts have always been cheaper. Wider range of toys is also offered. One needs SSH (secure Telnet), SSI (Server Side Includes), Cpanel, 10 MySQL databases, PHPMyAdmin and a UK IP number and he/she can get this for $15 a month.
Access to things like Cpanel, SSH and MySQL databases, are real obstacles for many web hosts. One has found a rare jewel, if web hosts are generous with these.
