I was shocked to see how many times server was down, or there was a very long load time for my pages. I wrote and complained. The reply came back that ownership of host had changed and a better service was promised. Recently I checked again and found company now has a 99% up time - a vast improvement. I was on verge of changing my host but I now find service is very good for what I need. Read a more in depth report on this here on my website: http://www.vitalstop.com/cheapwebhosting.htm

3. Full Service If your business is taking off and you need 24 hour full support with all "bells and whistles" then this is way to go. If your internet business is your main stay then you need a "cruise ship" company who are going to give you professional top of line facilities and service.

The choice out there is vast! How can you decide? Research carefully! You can use this excellent resource at http://www.hostcompare.com/ which allows to search for any criteria you set.

See if there are good shopping cart facilities so you can easily set up your online store. Managing your post office and autoresponders should also be easy through a friendly interface with good web hosts.

Look for 24 hour technical support and immediate response to customer needs. Some even have a troubleshooting crackforce which can give a response usually within an hour or two.

This is kind of service you can expect from a top line professional web host. If your site is really beginning to make money, can you afford any less?

Choosing a web host or changing a web host is one of those decisions which will have a massive impact on your business. Use 3 category test above and decide where you are going! Then decide whether to jump into a paddle boat or book yourself a ticket on a cruise ship for a happy troublefree experience.

Expect to Pay: $10-15 Basic email, static site, and 25-50 Megs of space. $25-30 Added features like scripting support, Windows NT, basic databases, site reporting, and SSL. $50-150 Will add advanced database support, e-Commerce, and shopping carts. $199-375 Dedicated Cobalt Raq server. $250-Up Dedicated Windows NT, and Unix servers.

Monitor Your Site: Your newly created web presence needs to be up and running 24/7 in order to be effective. Most top-notch web hosts offer money back guarantees if your site is up for less than 99% of time.

That is considerable when: An avg. uptime of 99.9% is 10 minutes of downtime per week. An avg. uptime of 99% is 1 ½ hours of downtime per week. An avg. uptime of 98% is 3 ¼ hours of downtime per week. An avg. uptime of 95% is 8 ½ hours of downtime per week.

This is downtime where your business has effectively closed its doors to potential customers. It is recommended you take advantage of web-based site monitoring services. This will allow for accountability between you and your provider. The fact is, you can’t be there checking to make sure your site's up at 3am everyday, but a good web site monitoring service will email or even page you when your sites down at anytime with diagnostic data to help pinpoint problem. In end, these services can potentially save you money or even justify you switching providers completely.

References: http://www.hostcompare.com - compare web hosts http://www.cobalt.com - rack optimized servers http://www.serverpatrol.com - advanced website monitoring