If I am going shopping for a host on the server then how can I make it happy?

When we look at hosts, everything seems to take a different way. We seem to look at price first without regard to the other areas of service being provided. Apart from the correct price ranges, we then look at the services offered. Once this list has been created we can look at other sites on the server and run the traceroutes to check for speed and reliability. The majority seems content to hand the host their credit card once they have made the following:

• Price
• Options
• Speed
• Reliability 

More of the time the issue of tech support will not be considered until after the site owner has had at least three separate occasions where they have had a question that was failed to be answered by the host. Reliability is a volatile situation. The same host that had been up for three months straight can easily be put into overdrive on the fourth month leaving them even down for any number of minutes, hours, days, or weeks, depending on their upgrade path, if they have a path at all.

The best options seem to come and go with hosts as technology offers new things, servers are upgraded and changes are made to meet demand. Tech support seems to fall into the same category as speed and reliability. The tech support is very important, but as the server fills up, will there be more people around to handle the questions or will it too become non-responsive? The only thing left is price, which for the most part seems to hold steady if we decided to pre-pay for a year in advance. If we cannot truly determine which host is going to be able to suitably serve our site by price, options, speed, reliability, or tech support, etc. Where do we as the site owner stand a chance in making the right host? The most dependable aspect of ending up with a decent host. This, of course, can be a good deal.

The next step was only a matter of time, and it has now started. Host directories have started to pop up. People working to offer other site owners a place to communicate about their experiences with various hosts and support while the owners sort out the good from the bad from the ugly in web presence providers. These directories seem to be a wonderful way to help the site owner choose a host. As of this, they seem to be doing a good job of helping to gather together a list of anywhere from twenty to thousands of hosts for the site owner to choose from.

Information about the host’s prices, options, speed, reliability, and even tech support. The issues mentioned above still remain though. But here some question arises like What about the over ten thousand other hosts that are not in the directories? How does the directory determine what host is good and what host is not? Is there no hope for finding the right host? Or are we missing something from our criteria lists?