Tips for Finding a Good Host

[Rob B]

The mistake so many people make when purchasing a hosting package for the first time is to jump straight away at the cheapest package, on the flashiest website. I made this mistake, ended up with a dodgy host, and it really does make getting your vBulletin forum up and running a real hassle. So, I thought I would put together a few tips here for people just getting started, and people can add more to the thread.

1. Be Wary of Over-Selling - It's the oldest trick in the book. They sell you more than they can possibly offer every customer at bargain prices on a flashy website, it looks excellent, you and every other mug go for it, and all of a sudden you find yourself on a dodgy server with 600 other customers and your onto their support agents virtually everyday being told "they are working" on the latest downtime as a result of the server keeling over. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
2. Do Your Research - There are loads of hosting review sites out there, including this forum. There is nothing worse than spending money on a host, and then finding a load of negative reviews about it. Make sure the reviews are up to date, as hosts can go through peaks and troughs. Also, make sure that the host you are interested in is compatible with server intensive applications, vBulletin is one of these.
3. Support Forums - You will appreciate a good support forum, and it is another good means of research. No host will ever have nothing but happy customers, there will always be complaints, so look for these on the forum and see how the customer support agents deal with them. If you can't find any, or the forum looks very quiet, the chances are the complaints will of been deleted so they don't look bad, and you want to avoid hosts that do this. Post a thread on that forum, and ask for feedback from existing customers.
4. Physical Address? - Does the host state a physical address on their website? If they don't, then that would suggest that they are a reseller, and I would suggest that you always have a better chance of a good experience if you go straight to the source.
5. Prospects - Can you grow with the host? As your vBulletin forum grows, the chances are you may have to upgrade your packages to suit your bandwidth needs etc. and possibly onto VPS and Dedicated packages. Does the host offer this? Will you be able to grow with them and have a long term business relationship?

Anything else? Would be good if this was stickied as well.

[Ohiosweetheart]

this is excellent advice

[alemcherry]

Hmmm.. Now a days practically every host oversells. Its okay to some extend. But generally speaking, dont get tempted by the 100 GB offer when you know that you will hardly use 1 Gb