There are literally a brazillion hosting companies offering domain hosting. This site was created to help give perspective to people looking for domain hosting, clear some myths, and reveal some secrets.

First of all, as you've probably already figured out, everybody offers web hosting. Everybody. If you want to work with someone you know, check with your Mom, she probably offers web hosting. That leads us to the first, important question to understand:

"What is the difference between domain hosting companies?"

There is no magical "best hosting company." If you actually had an unbiased list of the real top 25 website hosting companies - there may literally be no practical difference. (Of course, no such list exists anyway, as I'll explain later.) But within a few major categories, your website is actually fairly unique, and while one domain hosting service might be good for one person, there might be a better fit for another.

"Thanks for that non-answer. If one host offers 50 Giga-somethings for $5.95 and another offers 5 Giga-somethings for $24.95, isn't the choice obvious?"

Here is the first big secret of website hosting: Overselling. It's unavoidable, and hosting companies have to do it in order to compete. But there are different degrees and tactics; that alone seperates many of the good hosts from the bad hosts.

"What is overselling? Why do I care?"

Overselling is basically offering more product than you can actually provide. Sound crooked? Many industries oversell services. For example: cell phone towers can only handle a certain number of calls at any one time. If everyone in the area wanted to talk at the same time, the system would fail, or at least many people would not be able to call out. But cell companies look at statistics, usage patterns, and other data and make a responsible decision on how many towers and how much capacity is needed to serve an area. (They're also regulated by the government, but that's another issue.)

The important factor in web hosting is how much overselling the host is doing. There are limited resources: a server can only hold a certain amount of storage space, it can only deliver a certain amount traffic per second, and a support representative can only talk to a certain number of people at any one time. If you oversell too much, you run out of disk space, you run out of network capacity, and support tickets go unanswered.

On the other hand, if a host actually had a dedicated 50 GB of disk space for every customer, the server would be practically empty, and that plan would cost hundreds of dollars per month. (And in fact, some hosts DO offer that kind of plan - very busy websites require it.)

Beware: Extreme overselling is the business model of some hosts!

Certainly not all hosts abuse overselling; hopefully a minority. But these are likely the hosts you see offering a LOT of something for CHEAP. They are gambling that you won't actually use much disk space, much bandwidth, and will never need support. If you DO use too much, you cost them more money than they are making, and your site disappears. It happens. Every day someone posts in the forums at http://www.webhostingtalk.com because their site is down at their budget website hosting company and they need URGENT help. Don't let it happen to you.

"So how much space and bandwidth do I need?"

It doesn't matter. (That's another article.)

"That's ridiculous. So I should pick a host at random?"

Not at all. Here's the biggest secret of web hosting: space, bandwidth, and features are not the expensive part of your hosting plan; it's Support. And even more than overselling, this is what makes the difference between any two web hosts. Human interaction is expensive. And everybody claims to offer fantastic support - but it can't be measured. A company can advertise 50 GB of storage space, but there's no way to compare support using numbers. Some more-reputable hosts do provide some sort of guarantee, such as a guaranteed response within 1 hour, and guaranteed resolution within 24 or 48 hours, for example. The host may respond much faster, especially during business hours, but they are at least committing to a level of service. (Of course, always research guarantees in the company's Terms of Service to see if it has teeth. More on that later as well.)

"I'm more confused than ever. So there's a big difference between hosts, but there's no way to tell?"

Sort of - there's no way to tell by looking at a website is a host is a good host. I'm sorry. But you can learn to recognize bad hosts. Here are some tips to summarize:

• Avoid any host offering unlimited bandwidth or unlimited disk space.
  If it were true, Google could save millions of dollars every month.
  
• Read the Terms of Service.
  Seriously, because they have. Look for refund policies, guarantees, and limits on resource usage. Sometimes the TOS doesn't even match what the package says, but warning: The TOS always wins.
  
• Avoid hosts offering a LOT for a LITTLE.
  You may never notice if you don't use all your disk space or bandwidth, but if your website is down because of too many sites on one server, and there's no answer at tech support, you'll notice.

I hope this helps you find a domain hosting company that's right for you. Stay tuned for more articles soon. And if you are looking for a website host, please consider adding my company, GetWebSpace.com to your list. Thank you!