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Around five years ago, hosting was an expensive, but necessary, component of your online business. The standard rates back then were around $3 per gigabyte of data transfer. Nowadays, due to the internet bust of 2001 the rates go as low as 25 cents each. There is more excess capacity, there are more pipes lined up globally so all this excess infrastructure equates to a lower hosting cost. The deals are getting cheaper and better. They offer better packages, have more software and service add-ons. Additionally, the rise of outsourcing greatly diminished the price of customer and technical support.

Even if the cost of hosting has gone down, the importance of its role in your overall business has not decreased. A good host is still central to any online business venture. Keep in mind that you should be very careful in choosing you host. When your host goes down, your website goes down. Consequently, your business goes down as well. The key is to have an affordable yet efficient host. Here are some of the things that you should look for in a good host:

*Experience counts. You have more assurance with a company that has been around for a longer time. You should ask your host the number of years that they have been operating. Know how many employees they have. See how much they have grown since their start date.
*Do they just re-sell, or they are the actual company? Ask about how high up in the chain they are. You should know the difference between the two. The actual company has people on-call to answer your specific questions; they can schedule repairs quickly, check your software, monitor hardware and maintain a data center. If you?re only dealing with one guy (the re-seller), then there would be a delay in the time. This guy would have to ask another re-seller and then go on to the next re-seller before getting to the company. The more the layers of people you talk to, the longer time it would take to fix your problem and there might be a chance that more problems will soon come.
*Ask for a guarantee. You should always aim for quality, but most hosts offer a 99% uptime guarantee. Just have something written (a guarantee), so that you have something legal to hold on to. The particular questions you should ask is their uptime guarantee- this is usually presented in graphical form. If they refuse to show log evidences and other standard information then this is an indication that there might be something wrong.
*Redundancy is good. Pick a host that is multi-homed so that they would be able to use differing networks should their main network fail. If a host has only one connection, then you might experience trouble in the future, there might be much delay since your server/website is connected to the Net only through one connection.
*The brand name is very important. It?s like buying shoes, belts or other pieces of clothing. You tend to buy things from the brand that you trust ? the one that has never failed you. Quality is everything. You should pay attention to higher level companies like UU Net and Jupiter Hosting; they have all the resources and capability to support you. Low level hosting companies may cause you more harm than good when their network becomes clogged.

Always be smart in making your choices. You should never play choosing your host by luck. Critical thinking and keen observation are needed to be able to make the right hosting decision. Pay attention to the services they offer and know exactly what you are looking for. Ask them if they have it, get a guarantee and off to work you go.

source > http://www.urlsx.com/articles/know-your-hosts.html