There are four main points which make up a good hosting company.
1. Datacenter (is it a hall closet, or a facility worth of the worlds biggest companies?)
2. Bandwidth (is it congested, oversold and saturated trash, or the real deal?)
3. Server Hardware (are you being sold ancient dragons who have been lurking in a DC since 1999, or getting servers that are either brand new or less than a year old, and are they warrantied?)
4. Support/Management (do you get real 24/7/365 support from people who know what they're doing, or is there one real tech, and a 24/7/365 team of front-liner noobs who do nothing but say "We'll forward this to someone who knows what they're doing and will complete this ticket in 7-10 business days)
I keep reminding people of this. You simply will not get a reliable server with a bajillion mbps of good bandwidth in a great datacenter with an awesome support team for pennies.
As consumers of web hosting, you guys (and gals) need to not only shop with your wallet but also with your heads and look at the big picture. What is it worth to get a 100mbps server for $99 if in the end it's going to cost you thousands due to hidden caveats and poor uptime?
I'm not saying everyone has to or can afford to pay top dollar for the most elite hosting plan out there, but I urge you all to remember that in the end, it will truly behoove you to ignore gimmicky pitches to get the world for $5, and look at all the angles to derive what the best deal truly is.
