When comparing website hosting providers you should consider the following issues:

Do you pay monthly, annually etc.?
Most ads you see for website hosting providers quote a monthly fee but in many cases you actually have to pay six months or a year in advance. In some cases getting the quoted monthly price can mean paying three years upfront. If you do not want to (or cannot afford to) pay in advance you need to look for a website hosting providers who allow monthly payments.

Minimum contract period
If you are happy to pay in advanceyou need to check the Terms and Conditions to establish your rights to cancel and get a refund. The best website hosting providers do not lock you in at all. If you pay monthly it is reasonable to expect to be able to terminate at a months notice.

Can you change your mind?
Some website hosting providers offer you the chance to cancel and get your money back within a number of days of signing up. These guarantees usually have conditions to ensure that a person can only claim under the guarantee once but are still worth having.

How many domains are you allowed?
Most website hosting providers have lead-in packages often only allow one domain to be hosted. Initially this may be ok but you should check the cost of upgrading to a package that allows multiple, or unlimited, domains as you may well want to do this later.

Does the contract include a domain name?
Website hosting providers sometimes include a domain in their package. Check if it is always free or just for an introductory period. It is likely that the free domain will use one of the less popular extensions (it will not be .com) so it may not be the best option for your new site.

What is the limit on bandwidth?
It is now common for website hosting providers to offer unlimited bandwidth, this kee[ps the package simple and means that then you don't have to worry about this (unless your site gets very busy).  However where limits apply they are unlikely to be an issue for a new site in the forseeable future. But see Unlimited Website Hosting – Does It Really Exist?

What is the limit on disk space?
Much the same applies are for bandwidth (above).

How good is the provider's infrastructure?
Loading time is important both to provide a good experience to users of your site and because Google are now taking this into account in the search results.  You can have your site monitored by third parties once operational but at the outset you can only go by existing user feedback.  This should not be an issue with any of the top website hosting providers. Your provider should also offer a guarantee on percentage uptime which should be around 99.9%.

Do you want Linux or Microsoft hosting?
Many website hosting providers give you a choice of Linux or Microsoft services.  There is no connection between this and your PC operating system and I recommend that you go for Linux unless you have a specific reason not to do so. Linux powers the majority of websites, including major sites like Google, and there is a wealth of free software, tools, forums etc. dedicated to it. With many website hosting providers it is slightly cheaper as well. WordPress has become a very popular tool for building a blog or website and most of WordPress sites run on Linux where installation is quick and easy. The exception would be where your website developers specify the need to use Microsoft based hosting.

Shared, VPS (Virtual Private Server) or Dedicated Server Hosting?
If you are just starting out Shared hosting with any of the big website hosting providers should be fine – this is where multiple accounts share resources but it is worth checking that you can upgrade to VPS and dedicated server hosting later if it becomes necessary.

Other Functions
You should expect to see from good website hosting providers:
*  unlimited (or a large number) of email accounts and the tools to manage them.
*  unlimited (or a reasonable number) of FTP accounts
*  access to your databases (where appropriate)
*  tools to backup your site (and database where appropriate)
*  it is also good to see support for Fantastico – which makes it very easy to install WordPress.

How good is the support?
In many ways this is the most important question.  If you are stuck, the other services mean nothing until you can get help and support is where the best website hosting providers score.  Support can be provided various ways including, automated helpdesk, email and chat but should also include a toll free phone number.  It is also worth searching the web to see feedback on website hosting providers from real users.

Recommendation – From the many Website Hosting Providers out there I do have a recommendation, click here to see how it stacks up against the above criteria.