Everyone wants to find a reliable web host, right? There’s lots of different types of hosting. Shared, reseller, VPS, semi-dedicated, full dedicated - lots of hosting types out there. There are thousands and thousands of web hosts on the interweb, how do you find the right one? Well, in this little blog post I’ll tell you how not to find one. Hopefully it’ll be a little more efficient than listing all the qualities of a good host.

Sign #1: They offer unlimited hosting

If you find a host that offers unlimited disk space or better yet - unlimited bandwidth, press the back button. There is no such thing as an unlimited harddrive that can store endless amounts of data. It’s just not possible, at least not yet. Chances are if you start using up a lot of these resources, they’ll cut off at one point or another.

Sign #2: It’s a free host

Don’t sign up to those stupid little “post 4 host” sites where you make a certain number of posts on a forum, and they give you a free hosting account. Hosting is so cheap nowadays, you don’t have any excuse to use a free host. Spending a few bucks a month isn’t going to put that much of a dent in your pocket.

Sign #3: Their domain was registered within the past month

Do a whois lookup for the domain, and check when the domain was registered. If you see some claim about them being Established since 1999 whilst their domain was registered a considerable amount of time after that, then you automatically know they’re lying. Move along to the next crappy host.

Sign #4: No visible contact info

When you can’t find any contact info, or anything about the company you’re potentially purchasing hosting from - that’s a big red flag. Hosting companies should be upfront about their location, their staff, their phone numbers, etc. It’s probably not going to be a good idea to get hosting from an anonymous source. Also check if their details for their domain registration are hidden behind whois privacy.

Sign #5: 100% Uptime Guaranteed

Don’t fall for this gimmick. Make sure you read the fine print associated with this “guarantee.” Is there any monetary compensation if the site goes down? Does this apply to network uptime only? Try to check their uptime rating from a third party site to get a feel of what their uptime really is. Remember, if a host is down for 1 second, that’s not 100% uptime anymore, is it?

Sign #6: They force you to register a domain with them

Never register a domain with a web host. They usually try to sucker you in with a “free” domain if you pay for a certain amount of hosting. Most cases, you aren’t even the listed owner of the domain, they are. So what do you do when you realize the host sucks? You could leave, but they’ll probably hold your domain hostage and make you beg to get it back. Too bad for you.

Sign #7: Their live support is always offline

If you see some button that says “Live Support” which redirects you to a page that says something like this: Our live support is currently unavailable, please leave a message and we’ll get back to you ASAP, then that’s not good. You want support to be available 24/7 via e-mail, ticket, or phone - preferably all three.

Sign: #8: Google returns over 500 results for “*web host name* sucks”

Now this may not be a surefire way of accurately gauging a web host’s crappiness, but it’s a good thing to check. Here are some real host examples:

• GoDaddy (5,480)
• LunarPages (641)
• 1and1 (1,040) + 1&1 (375)
• DreamHost (3,410)

Please take all of these signs into consideration when looking for a web host. Do your due diligence and read unbiased reviews at places like Web Hosting Talk. I would personally recommend HostGator, and I’m not saying that just because I’m an affiliate and I make money off you if you sign up with them. They’re actually a quality host with great support. You can go to straight HostGator.com for all I care.

Can you think of any other signs of a crappy host? Leave a comment below. The comment form is below the huge mass of social bookmarking icons, in case you didn’t notice. Feel free to subscribe to the feed to get the latest updates.