As a web designer one of the most frequent questions I get asked is : who shall I host my site with? With so many potential  web hosts out there the answer is not always that simple.

If I am building them a site through my web design company 76 Creative, I would always recommend that they use our fully managed hosting service, as it requires no work or knowledge on their part. However, the 76 Creative managed service is reserved for clients of 76 Creative only. You can only get it if 76 are designing and building your site for you.

For many private clients, and friends who are looking to get started with creating their own site or hosting a WordPress blog, I have recommended 1 and 1 hosting. I myself host with 1 and 1 and find that their prices, customer service and the range of web services available through their hosting control panel make them a good choice.

The main factors that people seem to be attracted to in a web host are price and amount of server space allocated. These 2 factors are often used as a means by which to compare different offers and packages available. I guess this makes sense in a way, as they are both very tangible factors that can easily be compared. However, most websites take up less than 100MB of space on the server, so is server space really the most important factor?

Other factors that are often compared are the server's uptime and connection speed.

Two factors I find most important which seem to get less attention are the quality of customer service, and the quality of the hosts control panel. If a host doesn't offer any kind of control panel for you to manage your websites, email accounts etc. then I wouldn't reccomend them.

Many hosts offer the cPanel control panel which is packed with features and easy to use. Other hosts offer more bespoke control panels which range from extremely good to absoluteley useless. I won't name any names, but I have seen control panels from some hosts that offer absolutely nothing, you have to email them every time you want to create a new email address or anything.

Here is my list of factors to consider when chosing your web host in order of importance:

1. Hosting Platform (Microsoft or Linux / Apache)
2. Server uptime
3. Monthly traffic permitted
4. Firewall
5. FTP Access
6. Other software (PHP version etc.)
7. Amount of server space allocated
8. Quality of control panel
9. Quality of customer support by phone
10. SSI  (Server Side Includes)  supported?
11. Password protected directories  supported?
12. Number of IMAP/POP3 email accounts
13. Spam filtering
14. Number of mySQL databases

Notice that I didn't include price in my list. The reason for this is that I would compare price against all these factors together. Price is obviously the most important factor in getting a good deal, but you also need a web hosting package that will suit your needs.

1&1 Hosting and Domains. 99.9% Uptime Guarantee, 25 GBit Connectivity & 24/7 Support! www.1and1.co.uk