[squatrani]

Hey everyone
I was wondering how you guys go about finding a host?
Where do you do your research?
What forums do you use?
What else do you do in your process before finding a web host?
Do you subscribe to newsletters or web host magazines?

Thanks...Let me know!
Steve

[rogercbryan]

hostgator.com has always been good to me

godaddy.com has some hosting (ftp & cpanel) problems (in my mind)

I also purchased a hosting package off of eBay for $8 that have me 2 years of hosting for all 70 of my sites.

[PsiPro]

Hosting is tricky to chose. Like rogercbryan said, I highly recommend hostgator, for the type/price they are an excellent choice. They gave me my start before I started my own company.

Things to consider when chosing a host:
1) Price, cheaper price/GB means more people per server for them to turn a profit, therefore less stability and speed
2) Technical requirments.
---Linux or Windows?
---Do they have, PHP, MySQL, POP, SMTP, backups, and more...

[Fadzuli]

I was wondering how you guys go about finding a host?

Well you can always use this forum here to ask...There's a few Webmasters here. Digitalpoint forum is also a good place to discuss this.

Where do you do your research?
Googling. There's a lot of websites that compares webhostings.

What forums do you use?
Answered above.

What else do you do in your process before finding a web host?
Ask people to recommend. Ask them how is it for the last one year or so.

Do you subscribe to newsletters or web host magazines?
Nope.

Well I recommend Bluehost if you want to use it for yourself. If you are interested to be a reseller than Gator Host has a great deal for reseller accounts.

Web hosting provider - Bluehost.com - domain hosting - PHP Hosting - cheap web hosting - Frontpage Hosting E-Commerce Web Hosting Bluehost

[meaghannf]

I take some recommendations from friends and then I look at the features of the different hosts. I use BlueHost for my main site, but I had some minor sites I put together that didn't need as many features and I use a really inexpensive hosting service instead. First think of the features you will need.

[ePhase Networks]

It all varies on what you type of content you need hosting.

MSSQL/ASP.NET obviously requires a Windows Based Account.
Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP or LAMP for short is linux based and quite reliable.

There are certain hosts that focus on a niche market and do quite well so it all depends on what type of content you will be hosting.

[GuyBBY]

I use Startlogic and have never had a problem. They are priced very well for the amount of features and specs you get, and their technical help and service are very accomodating and readily available.

Guy

[squatrani]

i've heard lots of good things about startlogic's actual hosting. but i dont know about the support. long wait times true?

[ePhase Networks]

One of the better ways to test sales/support teams is to email them yourselfs and see if they have a ticket system to log when the ticket was received and their response time.

[Charles of 5DPI]

Originally Posted by squatrani

i've heard lots of good things about startlogic's actual hosting. but i dont know about the support. long wait times true?

Web Hosting Talk - The largest, most influential web hosting community on the Internet

Number 1 web hosting forum.

The CEO for HostGator hangs around daily on that forum. Talk to the people that directly own the company.

[HostRail.com]

Sounds like you are just starting out, congrats! Let me offer you some tips when choosing a web host (and other products):

1. Do your research. You want cheap web hosting, but not something so cheap that you will never get customer service or end up with your server down.

2. Expect to pay for quality. In the purchasing of your hosting options, you have to expect to pay more than pennies for quality and service. Your hosting may cost around $20/month, depending on what your bandwidth and disk space needs are, and your domain name about $8/year for a dot com name.

3. Quantity is a lie. Most web hosting companies tell you they will give you 50,000GB of bandwidth and 500GB of Disk Space/month for a $30 web hosting package. Some even claim to provide "unlimited" bandwidth and disk space. This is a lie. If you ever used that much gigs or bandwidth in a month, they will kick you off. They are simply trying to dazzle you with large numbers because they know the average person isn't going to use that much anyway. Most small companies are lucky to even use 5GB of bandwidth per month and 1GB of disk space/month. Don't pay for what you are not using (or even getting in this case).

4. If you think you might soon outgrow what is called "shared" hosting space and bandwidth, you might want to invest in a Dedicated Server or a Virtual Private Server (VPS).

I hope this helps!