As with everything that costs money I'm trying to settle down what is importand to me and what product is best suited. The only thing I could think of in webhosting would be reliability, best would be avaiability of the site 24/7 troughout the year. As for the rest ... I'd like to get a .com domain from the provider aswell, mostly because I'd like to keep the money going to one company instead of splitting it into several small ones. Uhm, any other things I should watch out for? Do you know any good hosts? A pricerange or at least a link to their website would be appreceated

Somethings that are important in addition to reliability are:
Support. Make sure they are there for you when you need them.
Scalability. Is it easy to upgrade plans if needed as your site grows.
Features. Do they have all the features your site requires such as dedicated IP, ssl etc.
Honesty. Is the company honest and ethical. Do your research.

Don't be afraid to send potential companies a support ticket with some basic questions. See how fast they respond and how well they answer your questions. Make sure there is a money back guaruntee in place in case you decide you do not like the services you recieive. Don't forget to read their terms of service.

There are a lot of shotty hosts out there, make sure the company you choose isn't one of them. Some key indicators of a fly-by-night company include no phone number, no postal address, does not accept credit cards, order form not secured by SSL, ridiculously low priced plans.

There are of course exceptions. If your unsure about a company, just try googling them to find other reviews or ask here about them.

Good luck.

I'll echo everything Anacrusis said and add a couple of things. Depending on your site disk space and bandwidth might be an issue though you generally won't need a lot of either, particularly for a new site. Where it sometimes becomes an issue right away is if your site will be serving a lot of video or audio files which can take up a lot of space.

Sending out some basic questions through a support ticket or email is an excellent way of finding out about the support the company is likely to give you. You can learn a lot about a company just by how they answer a single email.

Also don't just go for the cheapest host. Look for value over price. A few extra dollars a month may get you a lot more in terms of features and support.

Prepare a checklist which will help you not miss any features you need. I have prepared a checklist with all the basic features which are important to any hosting account. You can view the checklist at http://www.web-hosting-world.com/web...-checklist.php

Also its good to email the host as stated in the above posts, with your queries, which we help you know the hosts knowledge and their support response time.

Hm I really like the list. One thing that came to mind right now is the PHP safemode. My current host limits me with this option which is one of the main reasons I'm considering a change. I suppose all hosts that you pay for are adfree?

Can anyone suggest hosts? Nothing is better than trying the hosts other people already deemed worthy.

HostingZoom.com and LunarPages.net are quite reputable and their prices are reasonable.

Hm has anyone heared of any reliable registrars in europe? Paying in $ adds significant costs for me as I'd have to exchange from €. I'm looking into strato.de right now but I don't know if they are reliable.

sorry, i don`t know

I've been using Servage.net. They are quite an overseller, but they are in the game for a long time and they're actually quite impressive. Support tickets are always answered within an hour, maybe 2, the servers are fast and I haven't had any downtime yet. I host a photowebsite with them and I never ran into problems. What's really good for you is that their servers are located in Germany!