I look for a large company that's been in business for at least a few years. Also should have their own data center, or at least COLO at a major data center. I rule out resellers.

Next is support and uptime, but if those first two are met the rest usually fall into place. Features are not that important and price is of least importance. "You get what you pay for."

Check out how old it is and then compare this with the reviews it has over the internet. Some of the reviews might be fake but not all can be fake.

I look for a hosting company that makes it easy for you:

- Good price-quality balance.
- Flexible plans for bandwidth, disk space, email, etc, etc
- Good and more importantly: Quick -Helpdesk
- Support of latest PHP/MYSQL (etc) versions.

What I will be looking for is speed, uptime and customer support. It's all these 3 that matters.

I look for reputation and the for webspace, bandwidth, price, cpanel and reliability.

Load time is the first impression visitors/potential clients experience.
Support time is a differentiator from the minor leaguers. Gotta be 24/7.
Fantastico script provides one-click Wordpress and Joomla installation. I use several different hosts and the one I hate, for no other reason, is they don't have fantastico script.
Price. Higher does not mean you get more. I've found Hostgator to be over rated, and they're the most expensive major player out there right now.
Remember, use your 30-45 money back guarantee to your advantage. And never sign up for a 2-3 year deal unless you've got some history with the company. WebHostingPad has a great deal right now ($1.99 a month for a 3 year contract), but I wouldn't suggest you take advantage of it until you're certain they'll meet your needs.
Also, don't get suckered into buying our domain through the hosting company. They'll own it and use it to keep you with them.

I look for honestly and professionalism. Perhaps this is not the best method of choosing a web hosting company but to me their website has to be snappy / catchy. I don't want a web hosting company that put no effort into their overall company appearance. That doesn't sit well with me. I want a web hosting company that will talk with me and not above me.

I also make sure they provide an SLA ( Server Level Agreement). They can tell me till they are blue in the face that their servers do not go down but until I can see prove they stand behind their product I will NOT do business with that company.

I also like to Google, Yahoo or Bing the company to see what sort of 'dirt' I can dig up and then I like to either e-mail them or ask via live chat just to see how they work under pressure. I've done this in live chat to a web hosting company which will call "X". I asked "X" about an issue which I found on a forum and sure enough company "X" left live chat almost immediately. Which is a big red flag. Having Fantastico is a plus but I wouldn't advice based your whole web hosting selection around that. Great topic!

I always look to see whether they are oversold or not. A web hosting company offering "unlimited" packages is an indication for trouble. They will definitely go out of business sometime because they can never afford to deliver the "unlimited" amount of disk space and bandwidth they offer. It is just an advertising trick.

Originally Posted by Hamster

I always look to see whether they are oversold or not. A web hosting company offering "unlimited" packages is an indication for trouble. They will definitely go out of business sometime because they can never afford to deliver the "unlimited" amount of disk space and bandwidth they offer. It is just an advertising trick.

Oh good point, I hate outsourcing!

High Alexa rank
Good Customer Reviews
Reputation of Company
Own a DATACENTER-Or at least not a resseler

The main thing that mattered to me the most when I was looking for my first host was support. I was very new to web development so was going to need a lot of assistance therefore quality support was key.

reliability and a cheap price!

Just the basics, good uptime, ample bandwidth for my sites to expand, many options and some perks. Don't forget the price, there are many good deals to be had out there.

1. Support
2. Spec
3. Price

Though I appreciate others may reverse that.
Personally, I believe in paying more for better overall service.

I'm paying 3 times market rate for hybrid VPSs at wiredtree but considering the instant support and top spec, its well worth it, to me.

What do you look for in a web host?

Usability of a power's panel, price, uptime, speed, price again ))

Live chat support is a must-have. Ticketing systems and phone-queues just don't cut it on those occasions where your site is unavailable and you want to know why.

Price isn't really an issue providing our website achieves a 99.9% uptime - something a lot of the cheaper hosts promise but fail to deliver on. No point running an ecommerce site if customers can't access your site in the first place

Originally Posted by downliner

Live chat support is a must-have. Ticketing systems and phone-queues just don't cut it on those occasions where your site is unavailable and you want to know why.

Price isn't really an issue providing our website achieves a 99.9% uptime - something a lot of the cheaper hosts promise but fail to deliver on. No point running an ecommerce site if customers can't access your site in the first place

Will you are talking as the end user. Each eand user would like to have phone support 24/7 and have kive chat. But from the side of web hosting provider I believe ticket system is mote then enough and that would be the quckest way to serve all requests

server should never go down, enough bandwidth, its not mixed up with adult sites..

• ability to host unlimited domains
• 99.9%+ uptime
• bandwidth requirements that I will need
• fast support

Be aware of your web hosting needs: Be clear on what your professional needs and expectations from the service provider. This would make the selection of a web service provider an easier task. Take note that many types of forms are available, and are compatible with different operating systems like Linux and Windows