I have worked with various web hosts in 5 years, from shared hosting to dedicated hosting servers.

How to Choose a Web Host ? Depends on your website requirement. Suppose you are having a plain html website, you can probably go with any recommended good hosting. If you are running scripts in it or want to host a blog, then you need to consider many things.

My first Web Host -

DreamHost Webhosting – I started my websites with DreamHost.. I didn’t had much knowledge about hosting and my friend recommended me DreamHost. I got familiar with cpanel and used their shared hosting plans. Their service was very poor. They had some server issues that time and my website often used to go down. So i decided to shift my websites.

I guess, they have improved now as they are having a very good Alexa Rank.

2) Site5 Web Hosting – After comparing various web hosts, i decided to join site5 shared hosting with turbo pack. Their Turbo pack gives you a unique cpanel for each domain. You can add unlimited domains and each domain gets a unique admin panel with separate login. This is one of their best features not provided by any web host. Their service is 10 on 10 but they do give some troubles. For example – if your website uses lot of cpu, they will disable your account and you will have to move your website somewhere else. They sometimes don’t even inform you.  I have had this experience 4-5 times. So if you are on a holiday and you come back, you will find your revenue income zero for that time.

I have even used their Dedicated hosting but had terrible experiences with it. Once all my database passwords got changed automatically.

3) Bluehost Web Hosting - I tried BlueHost, because they offered good BW and unlimited domains in their shared hosting. They use cpanel and to add a new website you have to use add on domains, that means same dashboard and login for all domains. Their plus point over Site5 is that they allow 20 max user connections at a given time whereas Site5 allows only 15. If you are using a WordPress or any script, your website will go down lesser number of times at Bluehost than at Site5.

4) Web Hosting Pad - They also use cpanel and allow 20 max user connections. I didn’t got much chance to explore their services properly because i used their service when i was running a 100 website test program. They are more or less equal to Bluehost.

5) Cirtex Hosting – I used this hosting for my video website. I was testing on a vide website, so tried their shared place. I didn’t faced any problem with them. Their chat service is not available 24 hours. So you have to email them and you get a reply by next day.

6) HostGator - One of the very popular hosting providers. Well, as they advertise of very low rates but actually they are not offering low rates. If you see their plans and try to go for unlimited BW and Disc space, it do comes out to be higher than other hosting providers. I used their service for testing purpose as i was doing 100 blog experiment. They also use cpanel and so their was no problem.

7) Rackspace Managed Hosting - Ayushveda.com and other websites were growing so quickly that i often had to face server issues with site5 shared and dedicated plans. I decided to choose the world’s best Racksapce Dedicated Servers. They offer Plesk, which i had never use before. Now i can easily handle any kind of admin dashboard.

Rackspace, i can say that they have good servers and backup facilities. However their ticket response time is very slow as compared to other hosts. Sometimes it takes 30 mins and sometimes 5 hours or more. If you can call them, they can take action immediately.

I have faced worst situations even with Rackspace as my hard disc crashed while they were having power maintenance service. However they credited me for that month as i had to face some big looses. The websites have got just too heavy and with so much traffic that i will have to upgrade my server again. I pay whopping $500 a month for this server.

Mosso (Now called as Rackspace Cloud Hosting) – I have 2 accounts at Cloud Sites. This is of the best web hosts i have come across. Pay as you go without upgrading your server. NO tension of excess CPU usage, max user connections, BW limit, hard disc limit or database limit. Simply Pay as you go with 24 hours online chat service. However facilities do come with a fee. They charge $100 minimum a month, that means $1200 a year whereas Site5 charges around $120 a year. So see the difference. You should go with Rackspace Cloud Hosting only if you can add around 5-10 heavy traffic websites in your account.

The bad thing about them is their dashboard. You can say it only offers few options such as  – Email, Database, Add a website, Urchin Stats. That’s what their dashboard contains. Another disadvantage is that their plan offers 500 BW (uploading BW is free),  above that you have to pay. You don’t get a dedicated IP address. This is a shared server hosted in USA.

So i would say, it is a costly server and recommended only when you have the need to move to a dedicated server.

Last but not the least, some few tips on web hosting –

1) Always prefer Linux Hosting

2) Try the web host for 30 days before moving all your websites

3) Backup your website properly before closing your previous webhost. Move your websites to a new host, keep them running for atleast 1 month and then close your previous host

4) Prefer a Web host which offers online technical support or quick response time

5) Prefer Unlimited BW Plans along with unlimited Domains

6) Prefer Cpanel as they offer Awstats, Fantastico and other useful features. If you want to host multi domains, you may avoid cpanel

Enjoy with your Web Host!