How to recognize a reliable provider

I would also add: depends on the business. If you want a 5$ hosting to much research will just slow your launch.
Doing a research involves a great sum of money running through your site. This is why you do the research.
Any way to have this kind of site implies coming from smaller sites.
 
Good and quality support is the basic identity of a reliable host. You can not identify a reliable hosts in minutes.
You need to visit their support department too often and you will have an idea about it.

Another brilliant option is Money back guarantee. I must say that it is the best tool to test a host.
 
Sometimes you never really know how many times the hosting services has been resold to get to you.
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But there are tools of tracking, or whois service which make it possible to know who owns the server you are going to use. People can, and, I believe, have to just make a reasearch
 
24/7 support is something any web hosting provider should offer. But even the level of support is different for different types of hosting providers. Is it one with Shared Hosting and another with dedicated server and colocation hosting.
 
For a reliable provider you need to get information about that provider, check remarks in the market and then go for it.


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Hello all, I am new here so it won't hurt my feelings if you tell me to leave after this.

It seems that trying to "recognize a reliable provider" is a process of elimination. Throw out all that call themselves a "Web Hosting Company", all that offer "Web Hosting Plans", any that speak of a "Web Hosting Industry", etc...

Let me begin by saying the when the World Wide Web was opened to the public, a large number of sites were developed by youngsters and hosted on the pc in Daddy’s den or Mommy’s bedroom. This was ok for some time.

After discussion with many of the proprietors (perpetrators) and customers in this “industry” it seems that only baby steps have been made. It seems that this “industry” is just a step out of Daddy’s den. The pc has been moved to one of the many data centers around the world and connected to the data center’s network for Internet access.

I am a consultant in the IT industry and have been such for the past 12 years (28 years total in this crazy industry).

Every day I deal with putting together talent to provide something that invariably has to do with a component of a project, if not the entire project being hosted for access over the Internet.

I am inundated with people and companies wanting me to hire them that don't even know where the store is to buy a clue about providing content over the Internet but they know that they can lease this $100 server and call themselves a hosting company. The number of times I have heard "I don't need to know Linux or any thing about computers, it all comes pre-configured. How come you re not hiring me, I think I'll sue..." I cannot count but it is getting very old.

I am also inundated with customers bringing me ads and URL's asking why these people do it for $5 or $20 and I am not using them for their project. The next time I have a Doctor tell me that he can email patient information through this $5 hosting site (or worse yet post it on the site) because the "support guy" told him "Yeah, it'll be fine, our system can do that". I may be forced to shoot someone.

So I thought I would spend a little time and see just who the perpetrators were and what motivates them. The time on this board has been enlightening as well as horrifying.

When it was just the hobby site on the pc in the den, the practices I see here might have been ok. Today, the world is a bit different, business email (even for the smallest of businesses) is serious business. There really are serious restrictions on what types of information can be sent to servers in what country. Access to customer information must be restricted... etc...etc...
 
The "reliable" means something different when people looking for potential services. Some people think uptime is marked as top for a reliable hosting and some people mark the customer support. A worst company also has some "reliable" service.
 
Exmasters-Mark said:
Own DataCenter is not very frequent, but its presence is a very good sign for a host.
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I am disagree here. If you are selling icecream you do not need to have your own cows. Some people have near basement-based DCs ... And many reputable providers do not own DCs at all.
 
First, you must verify if it's a real company. Just do a search in the country/state/province where this company is.
Real company must be registered at the gouvernment.
After that search around the net if you can find anything positive on this provider, if they have a good support, phone numbers .....
 
I agree with you and i think response time, up time and there customer support is really of great importance. Also one should check user feedback as well before selecting a host.
 
Properly registered, age of the company, reviews on independent sites, etc. I find those are all good indicators. Definitely don't go by top 10 sites, etc. they are generally paid for advertising.
 
A reliable host always have nice, friendly and quick support team, so contacting them multiple times will give you an idea about their services. However, up time can be judged only by signing up and using their services.
 
hostloc said:
The "reliable" means something different when people looking for potential services. Some people think uptime is marked as top for a reliable hosting and some people mark the customer support. A worst company also has some "reliable" service.
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And an unreliable web host is worth next to nothing IMO. From my experience web hosting companies generally provide overall good service or bad.
 
alnitech said:
I am disagree here. If you are selling icecream you do not need to have your own cows. Some people have near basement-based DCs ... And many reputable providers do not own DCs at all.
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I agreed with you and mostly web hosting companies leasing rackspace in data center, which is owned by other companies. But it doesn't sounds those companies aren't reliable. The most important thing you want to know is, they have a physical access to your servers or not. Also they must have a good SLA in place with data center to replace hardware equipment if it's essential.
 
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