It seems like there are hundreds of new web hosting providers popping up all over the place these days. This review page is to help those looking for a web hosting provider understand how to conduct their search expediently and intelligently.

Next to finding the right merchant account, finding the ideal web host may be the most confusing part of building a web site. Those who are not picky about finding the highest quality web hosting for the best price won't have to worry too much about the particulars of this section. There are hundreds of competent web hosts on the market. Anyone who wants to be spared the headache of learning the details of web hosting can skip to the bottom of the page, pick a host, and expect to be reasonably happy. However, if you're the type who won't be happy unless you understand a bit more about what to look for in a professional web host, pop a couple Advil and read on.

There are quite a few factors to look at in a web host. Some, but not all include:

• Linux/Unix vs. NT operating system,
• Amount of storage space, usually given in Mb,
• Amount of bandwidth, or traffic allowed, usually given in Gb,
• How many POPemail accounts are provided,
• Access to raw logs and/or graphical stats,
• FTP access,
• Telnet access,
• Web based file manager and editor,
• Uptime Guarantee
,
• Site creation tools provided.

Don't worry if you are not yet familiar with all of these options, many web hosting sites have a glossary and you can look up what they mean. If you're a bit more experienced, then you may also want to know whether the professional web host provides a static IP address for your site, what kind of CGI scripts are supported, whether any database support is included, and whether there is the possibility of allowing anonymous FTP. If that isn't enough, there are at least two more biggies; price, and service.

Let's start with price. If you're putting up a home page for Great Gramma, maybe you should just go with one of the free servers. If you're really worried that the banner ad on Gramma's page will ruin the aesthetics of the page, or that the downtime will bother all the hundreds of cousins visiting the site, then you may want to check out one of the less than $10/month web hosting packages. If you've got a site that you want up 99.95% of the time (less than an hour downtime per month), do yourself a favor and pay for a good webhost. If you're trying to run a business, definitely pay for a good professional web host. While price does not necessarily reflect quality, you will most likely not be hosting at the most reliable servers for under $5/month.

A Linux/Unix vs. NT server will affect you primarily if you are using certain applications best supported by NT,such as .asp pages or ColdFusion, and want full support for FrontPage extensions. However, Unix is the standard, reliable server and is generally considered a more stable and secure environment.

Storage space is just what it says. Text files, such as a regular HTML file, take up little to no room. Images take more room, and multimedia files can take quite a bit of space. If you give out chunks of space to your visitors, either through email accounts that are hosted on your site or discussion boards where they post messages directly on your site, that can also add up. Nevertheless, the majority of sites on the internet probably need less than 5 mb of space, and excluding the space you give to your visitors, you should be able to measure exactly how much you'll need. You may notice that a number of the web hosting companies will offer accounts ranging from 100 mb to 500 mb, with a few even offering unmetered accounts, for relatively low prices. These companies are largely able to make such offers because they know that very few clients will use all the space they are granted. Those that do will probably pay quite a bit more for additional data transfer charges!

Bandwidth, or data transfer limits, reflects the amount of traffic you get. For instance, if you have a homepage which has a 5 kb HTML file which has 2 images of 5 kb each embedded in it, then every time someone visits your homepage, your account will be "serving up" 15kb of data. Okay, no problem. Well, what if your homepage starts getting 1,000 hits a day? Right, 15,000 kb, or 15 Mb. By the end of the month, your little homepage alone will have served about 450 Mb of data. If your site is large, or graphics intensive, or has many complicated applications, you need to pay attention to how much bandwidth you will be allowed on an account. Many web hosts charge if you go over your limit. Some are reasonable about the charges, and others really take advantage of the situation.

Log files are a record of every request sent to the server regarding your account. Important information, like which pages were requested, how many times, from what referring URL, what kind of browser, the time of day, and much more is listed in your log file. Reading a raw log file at first seems silly compared to graphical statistics, but you should really be able to access the raw logs and take a look at them. It could be that whoever programmed the graphical stats package may have different ideas than you about what is important to look at in the information about your site visitors.

FTP access is something that should absolutely be included! Even if you think you will prefer a web based upload and file manager, it is worth your time to get a free FTP program and know how to upload your files with it in case the web based file manager has any problems.

That's really only the beginning of the story. Each webmaster has to weigh many different factors when deciding on a host. We've tabled a few of the factors below for some of the better hosts we've found. Listed are only their cheapest packages. If others are available, we note that. There are hundreds of others. You should also try to read reviews on professional web hosts at review sites.

Note: Prices quoted are subject to change, and are generally the annual fee which is often discounted vs. the monthly fee.

If you're wondering, our site is hosted at FutureQuest - Powerful Hosting
FutureQuest - Powerful Hosting FutureQuest. We recommend them wholeheartedly. We've had Virtually Ignorant on a couple of other web hosts, and FutureQuest really is great.

Host	$/mo	Mg space	Gb traffic	Tel net	POP email	web mail	c h o i c e s ?	site making tool	our score
Yahoo! Web Hosting	start $11.95	5000	200	?	200	y	y	y	*****
New FutureQuest Starter Package!	$7.95	50	2	y	20	Y	y	n	*****
iPowerWeb	$7.95	150	15	n	50	y	n	n	**
Jumpline	from $10.95	50	3	?	50	y	y	?	****
ApolloHosting	start $6.95	200	4	y	un limited!	y	y	y	****

Frankly, our recommendation is to use FutureQuest.

Be warned that for half the price, you could get twice the headaches. If it's just for a site to post your baby's latest webcam, fine. If you're running a business, run, do not walk, to FutureQuest for reliable hosting and great service.

Not quite sure? Want more opinions? Check out: FutureQuest forums for how to shop for a host. It's not easy, and we wish you all the best in finding the host of your dreams. Hehe, FutureQuest is definitely ours!