Personally, I have done a lot of research into web hosting companies for  my own websites. There are many criteria which I evaluate before  narrowing down my search to three or four companies. I have listed down a  few of the criteria (in no particular order) which I deem to be the most  important to consider when looking for a web hosting company.

Technical Support

A good, responsive, 24 by 7 technical support is a must for anyone  serious about hosting a business website. Whether you program your own  site or hire someone else to do it for you, it is downright frustrating  when troubleshooting your site to find that your support ticket doesn't  always get replied and sometimes get responded to after waiting for  something like eternity.

Before choosing a hoster, find out more about their technical support.  Check out their 24x7 live chat support, dial their technical support  hotline and post in their support forums. Ask some pre-sales questions  and find out how responsive their support is. Also, try to ask some  difficult questions to see if their technical support is really up to the  mark, and that not any Tom, Dick or Harry is manning the hotline.

You also want to make sure that the company has a thriving technical  forums page, which has very active participation from both clients and  support staff. This will ensure that you have an avenue to turn to when  you need help.

Reliability and Uptime

This criteria is absolutely critical for business sites, where time is  literally money. You website cannot afford to be down for extended  periods of time. However, there is really no such thing as 100% uptime as  hardware may need to be replaced or software patched once in a while.  Nowadays, web hosting companies typically advertise an uptime of 99.9%,  which works out to be less than 45 minutes of downtime per month. A good  place to check out the uptime for a hoster is .

You can also browse through the company's forums page to see if there  were any complaints for downtime and how quickly the issues were  resolved. Another indicator of reliability and reputability is how long  the company has been in operation. Typically, you want a company that has  been around for at least three years and has a large client base. This  means and that the level of service provided is good enough for it to  survive in a highly competitive industry, and that the company is here to  stay.

Disk Space and Bandwidth

Don't believe it when a company advertises unlimited disk space and  bandwidth. The truth is if you are using shared hosting, the bottleneck  is really the CPU and the RAM, not the disk space and bandwidth. Your  hosting company will typically have a cap on the amount of CPU and RAM  resources you can use. If you exceed the limit, your site will be kicked  for using too much resources. It has NOTHING to do disk space or  bandwidth!

Notwithstanding, you can expect anything from 1GB to 50GB for disk space  and 10GB to 1000GB for bandwidth.

Price and Affordability

For shared hosting, the price can range from $4.95 from a starter plan to  more than $70 for a premium plan. Take into account the disk space,  bandwidth and features you need and choose a plan that fits your  requirements.

The important thing I feel here is don't get locked into a one- or  two-year contract. Although many companies have a one-month money back  guarantee, it is not in your best interest to lock yourself into a  contract however enticing the offer is; there may not be any problems  during your first month, but what about two or three months later?

Most respectable companies will have a monthly payment option, and this  goes to show that the company is confident of what it is doing and is  likewise confident to retain you as a customer. If the company does not  have a monthly payment option, avoid them like the plague! They have no  idea what they are doing, and they simply want to tie you down with a  contract.

My advice is don't stinge on a few dollars because it is not worth it.  Pay a few more dollars for monthly payment and it will save you from  countless hours of frustration later on.

Scripts

Most websites make use of either PHP (4 or 5) or PERL, and use GD for  manipulating images. Most hosting companies should have them installed.  Check with them if you are not sure. They also normally come with other  scripts which can be installed via their Control Panel. Scripts that may  be useful include content management systems (Drupal, Mambo, etc.),  forums (phpBB, SMF), blogs (Wordpress, Movable Type), and e-commerce  carts (osCommerce, ZenCart).

Others

A few more things you may want to check before clicking that order  button.

How fast do the websites hosted by the company serve out their pages? As  you are using a shared hosting plan, it means that you are sharing the  CPU, RAM, and bandwidth with many other people. A slow speed probably  means that the hoster is squeezing every cent out of their servers by  cramming as many customers as they can into a single server. Therefore,  you want a fast speed. Use to check the speed of the website.

You want a company that manages their own data centers. Reputable  companies will generally have an "about" page where they will list the  data centers they manage, while resellers do not. Normally, I prefer to  go "direct" and not to go through resellers, because when things happen  (server crash, etc.), I would be able to obtain information first hand  rather than through a third-party. This will make troubleshooting much  easier too.

Conclusion

The above are the most important criteria which I use to assess the web hosting companies,  before I make the decision to sign up. It takes time and effort to research and find a good hosting company,  but be assured that it is time well spent. It will save you a lot of frustration later on.