Finding the Best Cheap and Reliable Host

1. Speed

As a customer you do not want your site to load so slow that the viewer becomes bored or angry and leaves your website. Well connection speed is important to look for and if the host does not provide this information to you then you have some alternatives in checking the time it takes for a page to load. Well you may not want to check the actual site itself because the homepage most likely is not on the same server you will be on. You can always ask around to find someone who has used the webhost's services before and find a domain name to test (or even if your lucky an ip). Listed below are some websites in which you can test an average load speed for a website page.

• www.Host-Tracker.com
• www.internetsupervision.com

2. Easy of Use

Also as a customer you will want an easy to use control panel to setup and update your website. One very highly recommended control panel is Cpanel. 

Things that Cpanel can do taken from Cpanel.net:

WebHost Manager (WHM) [Server Administrator Login]: From WHM, you can provision accounts, tweak security settings, install addon software, and much much more. This interface provides access to the heart of the cPanel and WHM package and allows a Server Administrator to simply configure a few options and be on their way to hosting web sites.

WebHost Manager (WHM) [Reseller Login]: Resellers also get limited (configurable) access to WHM to create new domain owner accounts, backup accounts, and access to many other tools as determined by the Server Administrator.

cPanel [Domain Owner Login]: Within cPanel, a domain owner has all the tools they need to create an impressive web presence. They can add mail accounts, access their files, use website builders, add a blog to their site, and a whole lot more. With cPanel, your web hosting clients have access to a huge variety of hosting features that can put your hosting business, and their web site, on the map!

Mail [Mail User Login]: Every person who has a mail account on a cPanel domain has access to webmail, spam filtering, message filter, and many more settings so they can get a great mail experience.

3. Customer Service

Whether you are using the website for a business or for your own personal use you want it to be online and working correctly at ALL times. It is nice if companies offer 24/7 toll free numbers, online support, or a nice frequently asked questions page / knowlegdebase. Of course this may not be very important to you if you have a great deal of experience when it comes to setting up and running your website.

4. Reliability / Uptime

Like I stated before keeping your site online is always a priority therefore you want a host that has very little downtime. These are not always displayed to the public but most of the time have an uptime guarrantee or statistics that can be requested. A 99% - 100% uptime guarrantee is normally what you are looking for in a host because obviously 100% you can get money back or something back from the host if your website ever goes down. But 99% is also fine because there may be things like server maitnence that is necessary to ensure site security.

5. Packages / Price

The content that comes with a package is important but dont always look for the biggest and best. Many unlimited hosts offer something that really does not exsist. Unlimited space and bandwidth are unreasonable because the resources that such a thing would take up are not profitable. Plus many sites do offer this but in the long run they endup giving their customer a limit if they feel that they start using too many of their resources.

You may also want to look for things that may come with the package like a site builder, email systems, fantastico, etc. because these resources may be able to assist you in accomplishing what you are looking to do for your website. For example if you are very in experienced in these fields you may look for fantastico which will automatically install many features that are easy to use and configure. 

Things that you will want to keep the biggest eye on are listed below:

• Diskspace (Amount of space you have for files)
• Bandwidth (Transfer given)
• Sub-Domains (Main site: www.YourSite.com Sub-Domain is www.Forum.YourSite.com)
• Parked Domains (Additional domains leading to the same place)
• Add-On Domains (Additional domains leading to seperate websites on the same package)
• FTP Accounts (# of different users that can access your File Transfer Protocol)
• Email Accounts (# of emails you can create)
• Mysql Databases (# of different databases for different scripts can be made)

6. Last Tips

Some last tips I have for you when searching for a host are do not be afraid to ask the company questions. Be sure you do your research because many hosts you will need to make a commitment longer than you would like to if the host ends up being something that you were not looking for. Also be sure to check the location of the server your website will be hosted on because it would be pretty hard getting high rankings on the US Google if your website is located in Russia for example.

Some Recommended Hosts 

Even though two of the hosts below sell unlimited packages they are pretty legit hosts and have good reputations. And you can always speak with a represenative before purchase to see if their unlimited means unlimited.  Whereas NewFound-Hosting below does not offer unlimited services like the other two they do not have a minimum signing contract and for their price offer great prices.

• Host Gator (Prices increased unless contracted)
  
• NewFound-Hosting (No Contracts Necessary)
• IX Web Hosting (3 Month Minimum)